V4 Summit Revived as Hungary-Slovakia High-Speed Rail Takes Centre Stage

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Magyar declared the Visegrád Four grouping 'back' following a regional summit, where plans for a high-speed rail link between Budapest and Bratislava dominated discussions and overshadowed longstanding historical tensions over the Beneš decrees. The Visegrád Four, or V4, is a political and cultural alliance of four Central European EU member states — Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Poland — formed in 1991 to coordinate on regional integration and shared policy goals. The grouping had faced internal strain in recent years due to diverging positions on issues including the war in Ukraine and EU migration policy. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, a prominent populist figure who previously served as Czech premier, described the region as 'the future of Europe' at the gathering. The Beneš decrees — postwar legislation issued by Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš that led to the expulsion of ethnic Germans and Hungarians from Czechoslovakia after World War II — have long been a source of diplomatic friction between Slovakia and Hungary. However, that issue was pushed aside at the summit, with attention focusing instead on the proposed high-speed railway connection between the Hungarian and Slovak capitals, a major infrastructure project seen as a symbol of deeper regional integration and economic cooperation.