The Visegrad Group

The alliance was brought to life to advance cooperation in military, cultural, energy and economic matters. The Group traces its origins to the summit meetings of leaders from Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland held in the Hungarian castle town of Visegrád on 15 February 1991. Visegrád was chosen as the location for the 1991 meeting as an intentional allusion to the medieval Congress of Visegrád in 1335 between John I of Bohemia, Charles I of Hungary and Casimir III of Poland. After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, the Czech Republic and Slovakia became independent members of the group, thus increasing the number of members from three to four.
 

The V4 was not created as an alternative to the all-European integration efforts, nor does it try to compete with the existing functional Central European structures. Its activities are in no way aimed at isolation or the weakening of ties with the other countries. On the contrary the Group aims at encouraging optimum cooperation with all countries, in particular its neighbours, its ultimate interest being the democratic development in all parts of Europe.
 

The Visegrad Group wishes to contribute towards building the European security architecture based on effective, functionally complementary and mutually reinforcing cooperation and coordination within existing European and transatlantic institutions.
 

The Visegrad Group cooperates with other regional bodies, as well as with single countries in the region and beyond on an ad-hoc or regular basis. The Benelux countries, countries of the Nordic Council of Ministers, countries within the EU's Eastern Partnership and the Western Balkans belong to the Group's priorities.
 

The Visegrad Group's operations are based solely on the principle of periodical meetings of the member states' representatives on all levels (prime ministers, heads of states, ministers, experts, etc.). Official prime ministerial summits take place on an annual basis. Between these official summits—usually in June each year—one of V4 countries holds presidency over the group. The current presidency holder is Hungary, from 1st july 2021 until 30 June 2022. 
 

The V4 do not maintain a permanent intergovernmental or inter-parliamentary institution, but the 4 member states are responsible for leading the coopeartion group on a yearly rotational basis. The only institutionalised body of the V4 is the International Visegrád Fund with a yearly 8 million Euro budget. The main aim of the Fund is to support the educational mobility and non-governmental initiatives through scholarships and tenders. 
 

A recent example of the successful V4 cooperation is the set up of the Visegrád Patent Institute with Budapest headquarters in 2016 aiming at boosting Central-Eastern European research initiatives. The V4 group members have signed an agricultural and food safety agreement in 2017 to encourage technological inventions and sharing of best practices and a so called knowledge export in the agricultural sector.
 

In the future the V4 plan to expand their cooperation with certain V4+ formations – even on a temporary basis in order to promote and strenghten the V4 assertion of interest on an international level. The first of such coooperation attempts started in 2017 with V4+ Egypt,  the high level meeting taking place in Budapest with the participation of V4 heads of state and the guest head of state. 
 

Throughout the years the V4 group has been acknowledged as a succesful sub-regional cooperation and it served as an example for further regional cooperations. The Mediterranean countries (Cyprus, France, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Spain) have established in 2013 their cultural-geographical based grouping the ”EU Med”. The Craiova Group is a similar initiation set up in 2015 with the envolvement of Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia aiming at the deepening of their European integration and stronger cooperation in the field of energy, transportation and economics. The founding members of the Craiova Group have even set the V4 cooperation as an example.
 

The V4 group has even inspired the set up of cooperations outside of the EU. The Central-Asian Union established in 2007 with the involvement of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan also tries to follow the footsteps of the V4 Group, they have met with the V4 leaders in 2018 in Budapest, in order to exchange best practices, share experiences, and study certain values like mutual trust among member states, the emphasis of common traditions and values, the respect of cultural, national and regional diversity and to deepen the cooperation between the Central-European and Central-Asian group. 

 

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