President Pellegrini: Security Issues Go beyond Borders of V4 countries

Wisla, December 16 (TASR-correspondent) - Security issues are topics that go beyond the borders of our countries, but they are also issues that must be of interest to us regardless of the political t-shirt worn by governments in individual countries, President Peter Pellegrini said on Monday following the talks at the presidential summit of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia), TASR has learnt from its special correspondent. One of the key topics of the discussions was how to coordinate in the field of civil protection and crisis management in the wake of the recent widespread flooding that affected all four countries. "We need to strengthen the early warning system together, we need to improve the system of exchange of information from our different measurements and weather stations. We need to organise joint exercises within cross-border regions so that our rescue forces can better coordinate and cooperate," said Pellegrini. According to Polish President Andrzej Duda, the summit participants agreed on the need to create an expert group in which each country would have its own representatives. The group would meet several times a year in order to improve the alert system, information exchange and data exchange in the field of civil protection. During the talks, the V4 leaders also touched upon the war conflict in Ukraine. The Slovak head of state praised the fact that he and his counterparts shared a pragmatic view of the real situation. "We all feel that we need to push both sides to the negotiating table as soon as possible and stop the bloodshed right away," stressed Pellegrini. am