Visegrád Four to Present United Position at NATO Summit in Ankara

The four Central European nations of the Visegrád Group — Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic — have agreed to attend this year's NATO summit in Ankara with a common joint position, following a meeting of their defense ministers in Budapest. Slovak Defense Minister Robert Kaliňák announced the agreement after discussions that also covered drone technology and ways to strengthen regional military cooperation and the defense industry. The Visegrád Group, known as V4, is a long-standing political and cultural alliance formed in 1991 to coordinate cooperation among the four neighboring post-communist states in Central Europe. While the group has at times been divided on key issues — particularly regarding the war in Ukraine, where Hungary has taken a notably different stance from Poland and the Czech Republic — Hungarian Defense Minister Romulus Ruszin-Szendi described the Budapest meeting as a major step forward, saying it demonstrated that defense cooperation within the V4 'is alive again.' The NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, is set to be a significant gathering for the alliance, with defense spending, military readiness, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine expected to dominate the agenda. A coordinated V4 position could amplify the group's collective influence within the broader 32-member alliance.