Macron and V4 leaders to “smooth things out”

French President Emmanuel Macron met with the Visegrad four leaders in Brussels last week during the EU summit. “"At the Visegrad meeting this morning we established which issues we disagree on and where we will continue to talk to better understand each other's constraints. There are issues where I'd like to advance together, the posted workers directive being one. I believe we need a profound reform of the balance. I will do it with respect for our partners,” Macron said. The posted workers issue concerns the issue of workers from the CEE region, who can, for a limited time, work for their local wages, while posted in the Western European countries. Macron called it a “social dumping” during his campaign, seeing this as an unfair competition from the CEE states, where wages are significantly lower than in the rest of Europe. “As far as I can see, we identified the issues where pragmatic cooperation and agreement can be achieved on the basis of mutual respect,” Hungarian PM Victor Orban said. Earlier last week, Macron said that European countries that do not respect the rules should pay the full political consequences, alluding to the EU concerns over the rule of law in Poland and Hungary, as well as a failure by these two countries and Czechia to accept any migrants living in camps in Italy and Greece. The five leaders had agreed to meet again in September.