Polish Presidency of the Visegrad Group

However, looking back at the history of the Visegrad Group, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, it is clear that this motto is also an excellent description of all three decades of the group’s existence. In fact, the main idea behind the cooperation of Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary was the return to Europe and repairing the damages caused by the 40 years of communism to their economies, societies, and institutions. A great historic and civilisational return – we are “back on track”.

Historical background

On 15 February 1991, the presidents of Czechoslovakia and Poland, as well as the prime minister of Hungary met at a mediaeval castle in a Hungarian town of Visegrád. This summit alluded to two congresses of kings of Bohemia, Poland and Hungary at the same location over 650 years earlier (in the 1330s). The historical roots of the region’s close collaboration run very deep.

The first ruler of Poland mentioned in written sources married a Bohemian princess named Doubravka. In the Middle Ages, the countries of the today’s Visegrad Group shared a common monarch several times. During “the long nineteenth century” all (Poland only in part) were ruled by the Habsburgs. The common fate of the today’s Visegrad Group was born out of the pursuit of freedom, supported also by Switzerland. In 1868, when the famous Bar Column was unveiled at the shores of Lake Zürich in Rapperswil, the ceremony was also attended by Czech and Hungarian guests. During a banquet held to mark the event at the Rapperswil’s best hotel, the Zum Schwanden, congratulatory cables from Prague and Budapest were read. Among the ceremony attendees was General Perczel, a veteran of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, who talked about Polish support for Hungarians fighting for freedom. Two years later, countries of the today’s Visegrad Group responded with a similar enthusiasm to the opening of the Polish Museum at the Rapperswil Castle.

Also during the times of communist dictatorship, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Hungarians shared aspirations for freedom. At the end of the 1970s, representatives of Polish and Czechoslovakian opposition started meeting in secret in the Krkonoše. In the 1980s, they gave rise to a unique organisation – the Polish-Czech-Slovakian Solidarity that was a transnational alliance of anti-communist dissidents.

Together on the path to the EU and NATO

The heads of state and government that convened in Visegrad in 1991 decided to jointly seek solutions to very similar problems facing post-communist nations that were undergoing the difficult transition process and to jointly strive for the EU and NATO membership. This was an extremely ambitious programme to “get back on track”, given that the starting point was very unfavourable: apart from a severe economic crisis we had to deal with an unstable and dangerous geopolitical environment (after all, the Soviet Union still existed in February 1991 and its troops were at that time stationed in all countries of the Visegrad Group!) and lacked basic institutions of the market economy (Budapest was the only city to have a stock exchange, which had been operating for only a few months).

However, the entrepreneurial and hard-working citizens of the four neighbouring countries not only dared take a historic leap into the European and transatlantic future, but they successfully pulled it off. In 1999, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary became members of NATO and Slovakia followed suit in 2004. The same year saw the whole Visegrad Group celebrate together their accession to the European Union, and three years later the four countries joined the Schengen area.

The V4 dynamics

Without a doubt, the V4 is an example of an economic success. In the first two decades of the 21st century, it more or less doubled its GDP per capita (during that period, all 27 EU member states recorded an increase of approximately 20 per cent). In 2019, the economic growth for V4 countries was from 0.8 to 3.1 percentage points higher than for the whole European Union, and in 2018 this advantage was even more significant, ranging from 1.2 to 3.4 percentage points. In 2019, the V4’s position as Germany’s biggest trading partner was unchallenged, with trade volumes exceeding EUR 300 billion, i.e. 50 per cent higher than Germany’s trade with China or the US, almost twice as high as with France, 2.5 times higher than with the UK, and over five times the value of German-Russian trade. Even in the extremely difficult conditions of the pandemic-driven economic crisis, the V4 countries show very solid economic results. According to Eurostat data, all four countries have unemployment levels below the EU average, and out of four EU member states with the lowest unemployment rate, three are the Visegrad Group countries.

Therefore, the V4 countries contribute to a great extent to the economic development of Europe, building its prosperity, and maintaining the competitiveness of the Old Continent. However, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary are also politically active in the European Union, since the EU is the most important cooperation and coordination platform for us. It is because the Visegrad Group is not an organisation and as such it does not have any bodies or institutions, except for the Visegrad Fund established in 2000. It is thus much less formalised than Benelux it is often compared to.

Visegrad Plus

By co-shaping Brussels’ policy, the V4 can also influence both global matters and its direct neighbourhood. For instance, the Visegrad Fund finances numerous projects that are implemented in countries of the Eastern Partnership and the Western Balkans. However, it is about much more than money, for the Visegrad Group is committed to bringing these key regions closer to the EU, supporting their European aspirations, and strengthening these countries by sharing its own experiences and recipes for success. Moreover, we understand well challenges facing Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans since we had to address them ourselves. 

Visegrad cooperation is comprehensive and diversified. It comprises so many areas that it would be difficult to list them all. Examples include: connectivity, digitalisation, as well as cultural, educational, and scientific exchange. The various projects and initiatives have one thing in common – they enhance the V4’s inner cohesion and the cohesion of the entire EU. At the same time, they are anchored to common experiences and values of Polish, Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian people, who in the second half of the twentieth century, due to an external pressure and actions of a foreign power, were pushed to the margin of the European community of nations. The establishment of the Visegrad Group 30 years ago heralded the countries’ return to the European path. A free and unified Europe was a longed-for aim, although we have always been a part of Europe. Now, after three decades of hard, exhausting work, we are again “back on track”.

Iwona Kozłowska, Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to the Swiss Confederation and the Principality of Liechtenstein