Tuesday (Jan. 15) marked the 20th anniversary of the Visegrad group’s (VG) founding and the mood at the ‘’ 20 years of former Visegrad Co-operation’ Conference in Budapest was overall very positive as ambassadors and former foreign affairs ministers from all four Visegrad states spoke of an organization that has had its ups and downs over the years but for now seems to be going from strength to strength.
The organization was founded on February 15th 1991 when leaders from Hungary, Poland and then Czechoslovakia agreed that ‘the similarity of the situation that arose over the course of the past decades compels the three to work towards the attainment of identical goals’’. Back then the goals were quite clear with the overarching aim according to Géza Jeszensky (Hungarian Minister of Foreign affairs 1990-1994) being to ‘’ speed up the transition from Soviet orbit to trans-Atlantic structures’’
Success came, the goals were achieved and by 2004 all four states were members of NATO and the EU. However following the accession into the European Union in 2004 scholars such as Jiri Pele saw it as an organization lacking a raison d étre and proclaimed its demise saying it would fall into significance. Such arguments were based on the belief having achieved a goal ‘’return to Europe’ internal problems such as Poland’s size, different priorities and a lack of common agenda would result in its demise.
However rather than wither away the organization has successfully reformulated itself and gone from strength to strength with all players having a common interest in energy diversification, its Eastern neighborhood and promoting strong transatlantic ties. Indeed increasingly there is a general acceptance across the elite spectrum that these goals can be best achieved through an inter-regional approach within the EU.
Such as been the increased nature of co-operation that in 2009 President Sarkozy reacted to the V4 countries meeting up prior to important EU Summits in order to develop common positions by warning ‘’If they meet regularly before each Council that could raise questions’ . On Tuesday former Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Petr Balasz said that ‘’ France’s remarks are a signal of our strength’’. Indeed Balasz’s comments were largely echoed throughout the room while Slovak ambassador to Hungary Peter Weiss felt that Sarkozy had misperceived the situation as the pre Council V4 meetings designed to ‘promote interest within EU not against EU’’
Predicting the future of loose organizations such as the VG is hard to know but already into its second generation of leaders the V4 group looks here to stay. With a combined voting power equal to France and Germany combined the VG certainly has the voting weight to further influence the EU agenda.
Cillian O’Donoghue can be reached at codonoghue@praguepost.com
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