On Monday the foreign ministers of the Visegrad Four (V4) grouping of Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic will meet in Prague to discuss the state of the EU.

The V4 ministers will then sit down for talks with their German colleague. Talks are then set to continue in Warsaw with a meeting of the foreign ministers of the bloc’s non-founding members. However, so far only the central European ministers are guaranteed to be at that meeting, Szijjártó said.

Regarding Britain’s divorce talks with the EU, he said Britain’s exit “will not be a matter of bureaucracy”. Instead of rushing the UK to begin the talks, the EU should figure out what it wants to represent and achieve at those talks, Szijjártó said.

“What matters is not when the talks begin but that by the time they do start the EU knows exactly what it wants.”

He said central European member states would have an especially important role to play in the exit talks, as those countries have “very strong economic ties with Britain” as well as hundreds of thousands of their citizens working there.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.

MTI photo: Koszticsák Szilárd