EditV4 is back – and it wants one voice in the EU budget fight
In Bratislava, Visegrad leaders showed where they will start pushing Brussels as talks on the next Multiannual Financial Framework get serious
The Visegrad Four is trying to sound like a bloc again. At Bratislava Castle on Thursday, the prime ministers of Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary and Poland agreed to intensify their meetings so they can take common positions into the European Council – just as negotiations on the EU’s next seven-year budget enter a decisive phase.
“The V4 is back” has been the line since June, first from Poland’s Donald Tusk, then from Hungary’s Péter Magyar and Slovakia’s Robert Fico. Thursday was the first real test of whether that slogan can survive contact with the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). Ireland’s Micheál Martin joined them in a V4+ format. Dublin holds the Council presidency and is due to put a new negotiating text in front of EU leaders in October.
Tusk said the four are now trying to restore the group’s strength and prestige. “When we were united, we achieved our goals and strengthened the EU as a whole. We will act even more intensively in the name of our interests and Europe’s,” he said. The future of the Union, he added, depends on the fate of the V4 states.
Where they already speak with one voice
On the budget, the overlap is obvious. The four want to defend the Common Agricultural Policy, keep cohesion money that narrows regional gaps, and have the next MFF recognise the high defence costs borne by countries on the EU’s eastern flank. Fico said the V4 will insist that national specificities are taken into account. Magyar put the next seven-year budget alongside illegal migration and soaring energy prices as the issues that matter. Babiš called for a “fair and balanced” budget that reflects different levels of development and protects industrial economies.
Energy is the second file on which they claim unity. Tusk said V4 countries pay some of the highest energy prices not only in the EU but in the world. The leaders called those costs unacceptable. Babiš went further, arguing that emissions allowances are wrecking industry and that ETS2 should be postponed. Two wars, they said, have made the fuel problem worse.
Migration is the third. Magyar stressed strict border protection. Babiš even praised Viktor Orbán’s old border fence as having spared Czechia and Slovakia the worst of the 2015 crisis — a reminder that a revived V4 can still recycle older arguments while claiming a new start.
What they are leaving off the table
Fico was frank that there are subjects on which they do not agree. The method is therefore the one Slovakia set out when it took over the V4 presidency on 1 July: fight together where they can agree, talk about the rest without splitting the group.
That is why the Russia file still sits awkwardly in the room. According to reporting around the Bratislava meeting, Tusk was the only leader to dwell on the threat from Moscow. The war in Ukraine once hollowed the V4 out: Fico and Orbán resisted military aid to Kyiv; Tusk and Czechia’s then-government under Petr Fiala wanted more of it. Tusk used to ask whether the format still made sense. Magyar’s arrival in Budapest and Babiš’s return in Prague have lowered the temperature. Tusk said he was “authentically happy” that Péter Magyar, not Orbán, is now Poland’s Hungarian partner.
The four are not pretending the old fights have vanished. They are betting that the budget, energy prices and borders are enough to rebuild a working alliance before the October European Council.
Why the timing matters
The MFF for 2028-34 is the first big Brussels negotiation in which this new V4 lineup can actually bite. Net payers want hundreds of billions cut from the Commission’s near-€2 trillion proposal. Farm and cohesion countries – including the V4 – want those headings protected. Ireland has to broker a deal. Meeting Martin in Bratislava was not ceremony. It was an early pitch from a region that says it will no longer arrive in Brussels as four separate files.
Whether “one voice” lasts past the first real trade-off – farm cash versus defence, cohesion versus climate spending, energy prices versus ETS – is another question. For now the message from the castle was simpler, and deliberately so: the V4 is back, the budget talks are on, and Central Europe intends to show up coordinated.
Costa begins EU budget tour with Slovakia’s Fico, one of Brussels’ most difficult partners
The article in Slovak by EUalive’s partner EUbrief can be found here.
Caption: (L-R) Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Ireland’s Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Micheal Martin, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, Czech Republic’s Prime Minister Andrej Babis and Hungary’s Prime Minister Peter Magyar attend a press conferencd after a Visegrad Group (V4) and Ireland leaders’ summit in Bratislava, Slovakia, 10 September 2026. EPA/JAKUB GAVLAK
Updated: September 11, 2026 - 09:53
