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France's Macron, eastern Europeans try to mend ties after disagreements

Ersin Çelik
16:11 - 23/06/2017 Friday
Update: 16:15 - 23/06/2017 Friday
REUTERS
Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron

EAST-WEST

The Visegrad four have also clashed with France on the treatment of migrants from outside the EU, and were infuriated by Macron's open criticism of the track record of Warsaw and Budapest on democracy and rule of law.

Macron previously said he would seek sanctions on Poland, whose nationalist-minded, eurosceptic government has angered the EU with its efforts to impose greater control over judges and state media and its refusal to take in any migrants.

For its part, France has sometimes come under fire from Brussels for bending EU rules on public finances and budgetary supervision.

Earlier this week Macron told the Visegrad-4 not to treat the EU as a "supermarket" and said they would face consequences if they failed to respect EU rules and values.

He drew scorn from Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who put Macron's comments down to his relative youth - the French leader is 39 - and accusations from Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo that he was showing off.

Szydlo's Europe minister said after the Friday meeting he hoped it would prove successful in clearing the air.

"We hope that (we) will be better understood now in Paris," Konrad Szymanski told reporters.

"We also hope that … political dialogue between France and central Europe will be carried out in a more orderly manner, without clichés and phrases that can at times be seen as stereotypical or insulting."

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7 years ago