Is the end of Visegrad in the offing?

The Visegrad group—consisting of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary—may not survive the enlargement of the European Union in May. The failure of the EU summit in Brussels to adopt a European Constitution (caused, above all, by the hard-line position of Poland) showed that Poland pursues its own specific interests in a united Europe, which may be difficult to harmonize with the interests of smaller Central European states.

In the past, the inequality between Poland, a country of 40 million people, on the one hand, and the other three smaller Visegrad countries, on the other, has to some extent been neutralized by a tactical necessity for all four countries to coordinate their stances in accession talks with the EU. Another important common denominator was their coordinated pressure on NATO to expand, in particularly to Slovakia and other countries of Eastern Europe. The upcoming EU and NATO enlargements untie Poland’s hands to some extent with regard to supporting aspirations of other East European countries.

Poland has never been an organic part of Central Europe. It is a country whose northern parts belong to the Baltic region, while its eastern regions are a bridge to Europe’s East. It is also a country with strong power ambitions of its own, who wants to play an important individual role in both European and world politics. After Poland’s accession to the EU, other Visegrad countries will be more and more frequently confronted with Polish stances that may not necessarily be in their interest.

Poland showed how much it differs from other Visegrad countries already during the Iraqi crisis. The Brussels summit then further indicated in which direction Poland may go. While negotiators from Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia demanded partial changes in the draft of the European Constitution, they were, at the same time, willing to make compromises. Poland resolutely defended its own interests; the other Visegrad countries were not its partners. It cooperated rather with Spain, a country of an equal size, from the other corner of Europe.

Some advocates of a closer Visegrad cooperation from the other Visegrad countries are now critical of the positions Poland took at the summit, while euroskeptics in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia applaud Poland’s strategy. For example, the Czech Civic Democratic Party, which during the chairmanship of current Czech President Vaclav Klaus could not find anything positive to say about the Visegrad initiative, now describes Poland as the Czech Republic’s chief ally and an example of how candidate countries should approach the EU.

The situation may even get more complicated because some government politicians in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia would like to join the hard core of European integration, should some European states—in reaction to the failure of the Brussels summit--decide to create a two-speed Europe. Should some Visegrad countries join the hard core of European integration, while some others, Poland in particular, opt to stay out, it would create a new dividing line between them, which would definitely bury Visegrad cooperation.

Regardless of what happens, it is desirable to start thinking seriously about a new way of organizing Central Europe. For the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, a close cooperation with Poland may not be the best way to protect and advocate their interests in the EU, as interests of those small countries and a big, self-confident Poland may not be identical.

It would be much more natural for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia to strive for a closer regional cooperation with Austria and Slovenia, the contours of which we can already see in some existing regional groupings. Such a regional group, whose members would be connected by the virtue a long common history and compatible interests, would be much more organic than the current Visegrad initiative—an organization that lumps together three small states with a country that has more inhabitants than its three partners put together, plus its own power agenda.

Visegrad.info - 18. 2. 2004