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Abstract
Abstract The Visegrad Group (V4), a unique subregional cooperation within the European Union, has experienced a negative shift following the Russian aggression in Ukraine. The Russian aggression in Ukraine also triggered another development in the EU. Enlargement has been halted since 2013 and has become the centre of attention again. The official candidate status was granted swiftly to Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, which also put the Western Balkans’ future in the spotlight. This article aims to interpret the four Visegrad states’ positions on the EU’s enlargement policy and alterations in these by looking for explanatory causes in the 2014–2025 period. Enlargement is of high relevance in the region, not only because of the V4 countries’ accession to the EU twenty years ago and of its complex, sometimes conflictual interactions with the EU institutions since then but also because the candidate countries are located in the immediate neighbourhood of the V4 region, that brings the geopolitical aspects of the policy in the spotlight. After conceptualizing the V4, process tracing methodology is applied to answer the question of the V4 states’ view and influence on the enlargement policy of the EU. This article aims not to determine the future perspectives of the European Union’s overall enlargement policy but to focus solely on the Visegrad countries. Still, the conclusions of this article can contribute to the general understanding of the debates on the future of enlargement.
Highlights
The Visegrad Group (V4)1 in the European Union (EU) has been a visible actor for over a decade (Éltető-Szemlér 2023; Cabada-Waisova 2018)
Is it a unique form of differentiated integration (Stubb 1996; De-Neve 2007; Dyson and Sepos 2010; Halmai 2019; Koller 2012 and 2019; Schimmelfennig et al 2022), where members cooperate more closely in some policy areas and sometimes take a regional position on proposals coming from the EU institutions, as it was demonstrated in the unique answers provided to the 2015 migration crisis? Or is it instead a loose, non-institutionalized form of cooperation, with the very different interests of the four-member states where a common V4 position is only possible when the interests of all four Member States so require? There are arguments for both
We argue that when the V4 can act together in EU policies, we can observe the three-level game—this was the case in a number of policy areas in the mid-2010s
Summary
The Visegrad Group (V4)1 in the European Union (EU) has been a visible actor for over a decade (Éltető-Szemlér 2023; Cabada-Waisova 2018). The entire history of the Visegrad cooperation is connected to the European Union, starting with the “rapprochement” of the V4 countries to the EU in the 1990s, continuing with membership candidacy and official accession negotiation processes, and the entry into the EU in 2004, followed by the twenty years spent as member states in the EU.
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