One of the meetings of the summit of the Visegrad Four - the speakers of the parliaments - was canceled due to the fact that the Czechs decided to boycott it because of Hungary, which maintains a loyal position towards Russia.
This was reported by Euractiv.
The speaker of the lower house, Marketa Pekarova-Adamova, and the speaker of the Senate, Miloš Vystrčil, refused to sit at the same table with the Hungarian side, because of which Slovakia, which is hosting the summit, canceled the meeting.
According to the Czech publication Seznam Zprávy, the speakers of the Polish Sejm and Senate were also planning a boycott.
The speaker of Hungary's unicameral parliament, László Kever, expressed regret at the cancellation of the meeting, saying that the Czech colleagues' remarks about Hungary "are disrespectful, do not correspond to the facts and call into question the right of the Hungarian government to pursue policies in accordance with Hungary's national interests."
At the same time, Czech Prime Minister Petro Fiala will still go to the summit, which is planned for November 24. For him, this will be the first Visegrad Four summit since taking office. "I think it's no secret that Hungary's approach is very different from the policy of other Visegrad countries. However, and this is important, our dialogue has led to the fact that Hungary has so far supported all key decisions at the EU level," Fial emphasized.
As the publication notes, this is not the first such case – in March, Slovakia had to cancel the meeting of Visegrad defense ministers after the Polish and Czech ministers decided not to participate.