The Limits of Cooperation of Visegrad Countries amid the Crises of the 2020s

The Visegrad Group (V4) that unites four post-socialist states (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Czechia) is currently the most recognizable, influential and long-lived regional entity in Central Europe. Nevertheless, in recent years, against the background of special domestic political development and external shocks, the “four” has entered upon a path of permanent crisis that has manifested itself in fading of many traditional formats of cooperation. In this regard, the purpose of this article is to analyze the fundamental reasons for the transformation that has begun, to indicate the profundity of possible alterations and to outline the prospect of subsequent Central European interaction. It is noted that since the group formation in 1991 its actions have been unstable: periods of stagnation followed periods of tempestuous activity. The alternation of phases depended on many factors: the political preferences of politicians; the emergence of the agenda that unites the interests of all four states; favorable external conditions and etc. It is concluded that the V4 managed to “stay afloat” for more than 30 years as well due to organizational amorphousness of the group, the participation in its work of many political actors that sometimes had opposing views and obtaining of the certain added value from cooperation by member states. Besides, the “four” benefitted from the image acquired over the years of its work, even from a negative one. However, as shown in the article, by the time the special military operation in Ukraine began in February 2022, a wide range of contradictions had been accumulated within the group that openly made itself felt by reducing traditional cooperation formats, reconfiguring intra-group interaction models and beginning discussions about the forthcoming transformation of the group. The study raises the question of the “Visegrad crisis” as a window of opportunities, on the one hand, for individual Central European states (Poland and Czechia) declaring political ambitious amid the global reconstruction, on the other hand, for other regional associations (the Three Seas Initiative and the Bucharest Nine). It is predicted that the political alterations occurred at the end of 2023 in some V4 member states won’t lead to alterations in the indicated trends in the Visegrad group development. Its participants will aspire for reduction of the group activity to cross-border cooperation and civil societies interaction.

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