by Máté Hekfusz
“Why is it when something happens, it is always you four?”
Though EU leaders probably did not ask this question of this group of four Central European prime ministers, they certainly wanted to. Meet the Visegrád Group, also known as V4. The V4 is a block of economic and political cooperation that often causes headaches for those who are trying to steer the Union in a common direction. How did the Group form and what issues bring them together today? How united are they in their vision for the EU? And are they really deserving of their ‘renegade’ image?
According to their website, the V4 is the partnership of Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, and Poland, representing the efforts of Central European countries to work together in a number of fields of common interests. Established in 1991, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Communist regimes in the four countries, the block predates the nations’ EU memberships by a decade. The historical roots go even further back: Visegrád, a Hungarian town and the namesake of the group, gave place to a meeting of three notable kings in the region back in the 14th century where they, fittingly enough, discussed economic cooperation and standing together against a common enemy.
Despite the four nations’ rich and interconnected history, it is their recent, contrary positions on EU policy that have made them infamous; during the refugee crisis, they opposed EU settlement quotas and refused to take in any immigrants, for which the European Commission sued three of the four members. The Group has also been a general wedge in the drive for greater European integration. The emerging ‘illiberalist’ way of conservative populism and limited democracy, spearheaded by Poland and Hungary, preaches a ‘Europe of nations’ and promises strong national sovereignty, even at the cost of weakening cooperation. These positions paint a clear image of the V4 ‘brand’ — and others on the international stage have certainly taken notice. States wishing to gain a political foothold in the EU have come courting: China called the V4 a ‘dynamic force’, India’s External Affairs Minister visited Hungary to talk about Central European cooperation, and Israel planned to host the four nations in Jerusalem.
However, the Group is far from being a homogenous block with a unified voice and ideology. The Israeli summit was eventually cancelled because of a row between Israel and Poland. Hungary’s government maintains good relationships with its old sovereign, Russia, clashing with the other three. Slovakia, from its pulpit of the Group’s rotating presidency, is urging moderation among the V4 and asking its fellow nations to tone down the anti-refugee rhetoric. This is hardly their first time playing mediator: the country has long posited itself as the voice of compromise within the Group, being the only ones to settle migrants under the EU plan (thus avoiding the Commission’s wrath), not to mention that they are the only nation of the four in the Eurozone. Together with the Czech Republic, they are often seen as the V4’s ‘moderate’ wing, tempering the ‘revolutionary’ ambitions of the other two.
Do the countries deserve their renegade image then? Two of them wear it proudly, the third is making conscious efforts to erase it, while the fourth swings back and forth. The Visegrád Group is thus a complex one. Brought together by geographic convenience and now connected by as many lines as it is divided by, its direction and place on the international stage is bound to remain in a constant flux.
