The prime ministers will meet at the Hungarian Embassy in Brussels, as they have done a number of times before, to coordinate their positions ahead of the EU summit on 24-25 March.
On their agenda is the 'Europe 2020' strategy for growth and jobs and the EU's future diplomatic corps, the European External Action Service.
For the first time, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso will attend the mini-summit.
Collectively, the 'Visegrad Four' have the same voting weight as France and Germany combined. Paris and Berlin have reportedly expressed their discontent over the revival of internal meetings between the Visegrad Four (V4) in an EU context. The group was first set up in 1991 by Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland to speed up their EU accession.
Ivan Korčok, permanent representative of Slovakia to the EU, told EurActiv that the Visegrad countries were "very glad" they would be joined by Barroso.
Speaking to this website in an interview, the diplomat said a "tradition" had now been established to hold such meetings before every EU summit in the same way that other EU countries do.
The mini-summit will mainly concentrate on the 'Europe 2020' strategy for sustainable growth and jobs, recently presented by Barroso, the diplomat said (EurActiv 03/03/10).
Korčok indicated that the V4 prime ministers may also raise the issue of a so-called 'poverty target' aimed at reducing the number of people "at risk of poverty" by 20 million, from 89 million at present across the EU.
"Our questions and doubts are that the situation in respective countries regarding poverty is very, very different," said the diplomat, pointing out that his country, Slovakia, is the fourth best-performing member state as regards the poverty target, according to Eurostat and other official statistical data, despite the fact that salaries in Slovakia are relatively low.
According to EU methodology, the poverty line is set at 60% of the average income level, which leads to discrepancies throughout Europe. Minimum salaries in Europe vary from over 1,600 euros in Luxembourg to 132 euros in Bulgaria.
The diplomat argued that while a reduction in poverty levels could result from the EU's new strategy, it contains no proper instrument to deliver on the target. In his eyes, "cohesion" seems to be a more appropriate target, but he lamented that there had not been enough time to discuss the strategy since its publication three weeks ago.
Regarding the EU's new diplomatic corps, the European External Action Sevice (EEAS), the ambassador said the Visegrad countries had produced a paper aimed at achieving fair representation of the new member states in the new service.
"What we want to avoid is that we will appear in a situation where we have doubts that this is our service," the diplomat stated.
To read the interview in full, please click here.
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