PM Fico calls for more meetings with French President Macron

The meeting of prime ministers from the Visegrad Four (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) with French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the EU summit in Brussels on Friday was beneficial, according to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. He expressed his belief that individual EU leaders do not know each other well enough. "It's good that we've agreed with Macron on regular meetings, perhaps ahead of every EU summit," said Fico. Describing the meeting of V4 prime ministers with Macron as an encounter between two different worlds, he said that it was beneficial to listen to each other and present factual arguments - even though there were also some "spicy" comments towards the end on Macron's earlier statement that new EU members from Central Europe view the Union as a mere supermarket, which is only about economic benefits and not values.