Visegrad group

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The Visegrád Group (or Visegrádská čtyřka, or Vyšehradská štvorka, sometimes Visegrádi csoport), sometimes also called Visegrád states and known as V4, consists of the Central European states Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. It has no formal or institutional structure, but appears as a “semi-official internal alliance” in the European Union (EU) and strives for the exchange of information and the coordination of political positions.

Name
Its name comes from the Hungarian town of Visegrád at the Danube knee.
There the kings of Bohemia, Hungary and Poland met in October 1335, namely the Hungarian king Charles of Anjou, Casimir the Great of Poland and John of Bohemia, who appeared with his son Charles (later his successor as a Bohemian king, German king and from 1355 Roman-German emperor Charles IV).

On February 15, 1991, the Presidents of Poland (Lech Wałęsa), Czechoslovakia (Václav Havel) and Hungary (József Antall) met at the Castle of Visegrád and agreed on goals that their countries wanted to achieve as a group.

History

Until 1999
In Visegrád on 15 February 1991, the then founding states Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia issued a declaration stating their intention to solve the problems that were largely common after the end of the Eastern Bloc and the Cold War as cooperatively as possible. In this regard, the group, sometimes called the Visegrád Triangle, saw itself as a complement to the Pentagonale or the Central European Initiative, which was too politically inconsistent due to the membership of Western states (Austria and Italy). In addition to the common interests towards EU and NATO accession and enhanced cooperation in the fields of culture and business, the Visegrad Group also addressed technical cooperation and some issues of national minorities. The promotion of civil society and economic contacts was agreed, but no institutions were created. Another meeting of the group took place in Visegrád on 6 October 1991. After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in early 1993, the new states of Slovakia and the Czech Republic became independent members.
In November 1998, at a meeting in Budapest, the then governments of the four countries decided to resume cooperation in the form of regular meetings every six months.

Since 1999
With effect from 14. In May 1999, the International Visegrád Fund was established by the members in Bratislava. The fund is jointly funded by all members and supports, among other things, cultural networks and annually grants scholarships to students, doctoral candidates and academics for academic exchange. On the initiative of the Visegrad Fund, the International Visegrad Day is celebrated annually on 15 February.

Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary joined