Although Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar claimed before the summit that the Visegrad Group had been sidelined in recent years and it was time to restore its importance in European politics, he declared after the talks that “the V4 is back”.
Donald Tusk spoke similarly. The Polish Prime Minister declared that the countries of Central Europe can once again play a more significant role in shaping European politics if they proceed together. However, the differences have not completely disappeared. On the day of the summit, Budapest delayed a key procedural step needed to advance Ukraine and Moldova’s bid for EU membership, two EU diplomats said.
Does the V4 have anything else to offer?
The fact that the leaders of the Visegrad Four are meeting again at the same table does not automatically mean a return to the times when the group was among the most influential regional formats in the European Union. The question remains whether the V4 still has enough common themes to give it real political significance.
According to political scientist Petr Just, the informal nature of the group explains why it has survived periods when there were significant disputes between individual governments. “That informality is rather an advantage for situations where there are disagreements within the V4 regarding positions on certain issues. That’s why the V4 never broke up,” he says.
According to Tomáš Strážaj, the future of the V4 will not be based on grand geopolitical visions, but on specific topics where the member states have similar interests. Among them, he mainly includes negotiations on the future budget of the European Union, the common agricultural policy, European funds, migration and the development of transport infrastructure.
“There are common or similar positions on the budget, on the common agricultural policy or on the use of European funds. There are also sectoral questions regarding transport infrastructure,” explains Strážay.
According to experts, it is precisely in these areas that the Vyšehrad Group can still be important. Not as a block that agrees on everything, but as a platform through which countries try to promote common regional interests in Brussels.
Beneš decrees in the shadow of the summit
Although Prime Minister Péter Magyar already visited Poland and Austria after taking office, he has not yet visited Slovakia or the Czech Republic on an official visit.
Bilateral relations between Bratislava and Budapest can be affected by the dispute over the Beneš decrees. Only a few days after the Hungarian elections, Robert Fico telephoned Péter Magyar to congratulate him on his victory. Shortly afterwards, however, the Hungarian Prime Minister stated that unless Slovakia cancels the consequences of Beneš’s decrees, he will not yet come on an official visit to the country.
Magyar subsequently indicated that he would also like to address this issue on a broader political level. However, the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš also objected to this. The topic of Beneš’s decrees remains sensitive not only in Slovakia, but also in the Czech Republic.
However, at the recent meeting of the V4 leaders in Brussels, Beneš’s decrees did not become a topic. According to the director of the Slovak Society for Foreign Policy, Tomáš Strážaj, it has been the case for a long time that similar issues should be resolved on a bilateral level and should not interfere with regional cooperation.
“In the past, there was such an assumption that bilateral issues would not affect regional cooperation,” recalls Strážay.
It is much more likely, according to him, that the leaders will focus on common themes and leave problematic historical issues to bilateral negotiations. “Rather, I think that the view will be focused forward. Those problematic issues will be solved in other forums, rather bilaterally,” adds Strážay.
According to political scientist Petr Just, this is not the first dispute of this kind. Beneš’s decrees also became a topic in 2002, when they were opened by the then Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
“The Benes decrees are a sensitive topic for Hungary. However, this does not change the fact that if the countries want to focus on the renewal of cooperation, they will have to look for areas that unite them rather than divide them,” says Just.
New Austria-Hungary or media shorthand?
However, the discussion about the future of the V4 was not only influenced by the Hungarian elections in recent months. Péter Magyar’s statements about closer regional cooperation with Austria and other Central European countries also drew attention.
The portal interpreted them as an attempt by Budapest to restore its influence in the area of the former Austria-Hungary. In the past, Magyar also talked about more intensive cooperation with Croatia, Slovenia and Romania, and there were speculations as to whether he was trying to create a new regional block alongside the V4.
However, Tomáš Strážay considers such interpretations to be exaggerated. “Rather, it was a certain over-interpretation,” he says. According to him, the Hungarian Prime Minister mentioned wider regional cooperation, but did not talk about the expansion of the Vyšehrad Group itself. He reminds that similar formats already exist in Europe.
“We have the Three Seas, the Bucharest Nine and other regional initiatives. I don’t see a fundamental need to expand the V4 itself,” explains Strážay.
According to him, a more realistic scenario is the revival of the V4+ format, within which other countries would be invited to the negotiations according to a specific topic. Such a model already worked in the past and did not require a change in the very composition of the Vyšehrad Group.
According to Strážaj, the other member states have not yet shown interest in changing the basic format of cooperation. “When expansion was discussed in the past, the countries agreed that four states was a sufficient and effective format,” the expert recalls.
