Parliamentary leaders agree: Europe is solution

The European Union is not a problem, but a solution, however, the Union needs reform and cooperation among its member states, the parliamentary chairmen of the V4 countries (Visegrad Group - Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland), Germany and France concurred at their meeting in Bratislava on Thursday. The parliamentary chairmen talked about the future of the EU, security, cooperation, as well as a digital tax. "The digital challenge is a crucial issue," said French Parliamentary Chairman Richard Ferrand. He also mentioned the need to react to climate change and to cooperate with the countries of origin of migration. "Overcoming the European continent's division is the biggest success of the Union, we must keep this conquest tooth and nail," stressed German Bundestag President Wolfgang Schauble, adding that all the member states are equal to each other. "We need the European Union," Slovak Parliamentary Chairman Andrej Danko told a news conference following the talks. "We need a strong Europe, we need to cooperate," stressed the Speaker of the Czech Chamber of Deputies Radek Vondráček, who confirmed a consensus in the issue of a digital tax. Hungarian Parliamentary Chairman Laszlo Kover underlined the need to search for issues that unite the countries, in which they are able to cooperate, rather than those that divide them. The Marshal of the Polish Sejm Marek Kuchcinski reminded his partners of the need to return to the foundations on which the EU has been built, namely Christian values. He sees a solution for the current situation in the EU in an equal attitude to all member states, based on the principle of solidarity.