Hungary’s Defense Minister Tibor Benkő has met his Polish counterpart Mariusz Blaszczak for talks on bilateral defense cooperation.
Following their meeting in Budapest on Tuesday, the two parties highlighted similar positions on a number of topics including NATO, the Visegrad cooperation, as well as bilateral military ties.
Both parties signed a document under which Poland joined NATO’s health excellence center headquartered in Budapest. “It’s good that we see the tasks facing us in the same way to such an extent,” Benkő said.
The minister added that Poland had fully shared Hungary’s view of illegal migration as early as 2015 and he thanked Poland for providing swift assistance to Hungary. He also praised the V4 battle group which will perform its tasks together with Croatia in the second half of the year. Both agreed on the need to restart the battle group’s operations in 2023.
In the context of NATO, they were in agreement that threats from the east and south were special challenges for both countries. Benkő expressed gratitude that the soldiers of the two countries would serve together in the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon. Hungary will join the task force in the second half of the year and will expand its number of units from next year.
The minister also noted that Poland and Hungary share NATO tasks, including protecting the Baltic airspace. Poland is currently on active duty and Hungary will take over afterwards, he concluded.