The Visegrád Four (V4) group of Central European states held its first summit in more than two years on Tuesday, hosted in Gödöllő by Hungary’s recently elected Prime Minister Péter Magyar. The meeting coincided with the Hungarian parliament’s adoption of a far-reaching anti-corruption law and the government’s presentation of a constitutional amendment that would remove President Tamás Sulyok from office. The twin moves signal Budapest’s attempt to rebuild regional influence and meet European Union conditions for releasing over €16 billion in frozen funds.

Speaking after the one-hour session, Magyar declared that “the V4 is back” and proposed a high-speed rail link connecting the four capitals, alongside common positions on energy security, agriculture and migration. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who belongs to the same centre-right European political family as Magyar, endorsed the group as a “beacon of hope” that could coordinate before European Council meetings to shape EU policy. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis described the V4 as “once again fully operational,” while Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico — like Babis, an ally of former Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán — attended but did not publicly shift his pro-Moscow stance. Central European diplomats note that the four governments remain divided over Russia’s war on Ukraine, with Poland and the Czech Republic having previously cut military aid and Hungary and Slovakia maintaining energy dependencies and, in Fico’s case, political sympathy for the Kremlin.

On the domestic front, the Hungarian parliament passed anti-corruption legislation by 142 votes to 39, expanding the powers of the Integrity Authority to scrutinise asset declarations, request judicial investigations and suspend public procurement to safeguard EU funds. The law also orders the dissolution of asset-management foundations created under Orbán, returning an estimated €8.5 billion in assets to the state, and introduces criminal penalties for deliberate omissions in politicians’ wealth declarations. Separately, the government submitted a constitutional amendment that would limit the prime minister’s tenure to eight years, cap parliamentary mandates at twelve years, bar judges over 70 from leading the supreme and constitutional courts, and establish an agency for recovering state assets. Magyar described the package as “Operation Cleansing Fire,” aimed at eradicating corruption that, according to his government, flourished during Orbán’s 16-year rule.

The V4, founded in 1991 to coordinate the post-communist return to Europe, had fractured after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when Orbán’s close ties to Moscow alienated Warsaw and Prague. Magyar’s landslide election victory in April, giving his Tisza party a two-thirds parliamentary majority, has enabled rapid legislative action and a foreign-policy reset, including an agreement with Kyiv on minority rights that lifted Hungary’s veto on Ukraine’s EU accession process. Brussels has indicated that the frozen funds — roughly 13% of Hungary’s budget — could become accessible by year-end if Budapest follows the reform roadmap. The V4 presidency now rotates to Slovakia at the end of the month, while Hungary’s constitutional revision process is set to begin in September, with a new basic law to be put to a referendum by summer 2027.