IRMO Brief 06/2021, "Thirty years of Visegrád Group"

Introduction

‍In February 1991, at a meeting of the Czechoslovak, Polish and Hungarian presidents, the decision to create an alliance of three Central European countries was made. In 1993, the division of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republics and the establishment of the independent Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic transformed the tripartite cooperation into a four-party alliance - V4. The name refers to a meeting, which took place near Budapest (at the castle in Visegrád), Hungary, in 1335, attended by King of Bohemia, King of Hungary and King of Poland. Hundreds of years later, former Communist-bloc countries in Central Europe desired to overcome historical animosities between states and nations in this region, believing that joint efforts of relatively small countries would make their goals more achievable. The V4 was also established because post-Communist countries realized that they could together boost the socio-economic transformation and join the European Union.

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