Visegrád Group

Historical background

The name of the Group is derived, and the place of meeting selected, from a meeting of the Bohemian (Czech), Polish, and Hungarian rulers in Visegrád in 1335. Charles I of Hungary, Casimir III of Poland, and John of Bohemia agreed to create new commercial routes to bypass the staple port Vienna and obtain easier access to other European markets. The recognition of Czech sovereignty over the Duchy of Silesia was also confirmed. A second meeting took place in 1339, where it was decided that after the death of Casimir III of Poland, the son of Charles I of Hungary, Louis I of Hungary, would become King of Poland provided that Casimir did not have a son.

The countries have a long shared history, including various territories being ruled by the Habsburg Empire and its successors at various times from the 1500s to World War I. Most recently, during the Cold War, the countries were satellite states of the Soviet Union as the Polish People's Republic, the Hungarian People's Republic and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. In 1989 the Berlin Wall Fell. By 1990, the three Communist People's Republics ended and in December, 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed. In between, the Visegrád Group was established on 15 February 1991.

Economies

All four nations in the Visegrád Group are high income countries with a very high Human Development Index. V4 countries have enjoyed more or less steady economic growth for over a century. In 2009, Slovakia adopted the euro as its official currency.

If counted as a single nation state, the Visegrád Group is the fifth largest economy in Europe and 12th largest in the world.

Based on Gross Domestic Product per capita (PPP) figures for the year 2015, the most developed country in the grouping is the Czech Republic (USD 34,017 per capita), followed by Slovakia (USD 29,209 per capita), Poland (USD 27,654 per capita) and Hungary (USD 26,941 per capita). The average GDP (PPP) in 2013 for the entire group was USD 25,797.

Within the EU, the V4 countries are pro-nuclear power, and are seeking to expand or found (in the case of Poland) a nuclear power industry. They have sought to counter what they see as an anti-nuclear power bias within the EU, believing their countries would benefit from nuclear power's zero emissions and high reliability.

Poland

Poland has the region's largest economy (GDP PPP total of USD 1,051 billion, ranked 23rd in the world). According to the United Nations and the World Bank, it is a high-income country with a high quality of life and a very high standard of living. The Polish economy is the sixth largest in the EU and one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, with a yearly growth rate of over 3.0% before the late-2000s recession. It is the only member country of the European Union to have avoided a decline in GDP, meaning that in 2009 Poland has created the most GDP growth in the EU. As of December 2009 the Polish economy had not entered recession nor contracted. According to the Central Statistical Office of Poland, in 2011 the Polish economic growth rate was 4.3%, which was the best result in the EU. The largest component of its economy is the service sector (67.3%), followed by the industry sector (28.1%) and the agriculture sector (4.6%). Following the increase of private investment and funding assistance from the EU, infrastructure in Poland has rapidly developed.

The main industries are mining, machinery (cars, buses, ships), metallurgy, chemical, electrical, textile, and food processing. The high technology and IT sectors are also growing with the help of investors like Google, Toshiba, Dell, GE, LG, and Sharp. The result is that today Poland is a producer of many electronic devices and components. Minerals extracted include black and brown coal, copper, lead, zinc, salt, sulfur, magnesite, kaolin, and small amounts of oil and natural gas.

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic's economy is the group's second largest (GDP PPP of USD $359.054 billion total, ranked 50th in the world). Before the Second World War, the Czech Republic was one of the most advanced countries in the world. However, the transition from the socialist to the capitalist economic model in the early 1990s had a significant impact on the country's economy. Since the Velvet Revolution, the Czech Republic has successfully transformed itself into a free market economy. Today, the Czech Republic is a highly industrialized country and is, according to the World Bank, one of the world's thirty most developed countries.

The principal industries in the Czech Republic are chemicals, machinery, food processing, metallurgy and smelting. Other major industry sectors are energy, construction and consumer. Less important are the arms industry and glass, but these have a long tradition in Bohemia. Industry accounts for 35% of the Czech economy. The Czech Republic produces per capita the most cars. Main producers are Škoda auto, Peugeot-Citroen, Toyota and Hyundai. Other major companies are ČEZ (biggest company in central and eastern Europe), Škoda works (manufacturer of rail vehicles), Panasonic (electronics), Tatra (Heavy truck manufacturer), Arcelor Mittal (Metallurgy), PPF (largest Central European investment group) Pilsner Urquell (brewing) Aero (aerospace), and many others.

Hungary

Hungary has the group's third largest economy (total GDP of USD $265.037 billion, 57th in the world). Hungary was one of the more developed economies of the Eastern bloc. With about $18 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) since 1989, Hungary has attracted over one-third of all FDI in central and eastern Europe, including the former Soviet Union. Of this, about $6 billion came from American companies. Now it is an industrial agricultural state. The main industries are engineering, mechanical engineering (cars, buses), chemical, electrical, textile, and food industries.

The service's sector accounted for 64% of GDP in 2007 and its role in the Hungarian economy is steadily growing. Located in the heart of Central Europe, Hungary’s strategic location plays a significant role in the rise of the service sector as the country’s central position makes it suitable and rewarding to invest.

The main sectors of Hungarian industry are heavy industry (mining, metallurgy, machine and steel production), energy production, mechanical engineering, chemicals, food industry, and automobile production. The industry is leaning mainly on processing industry and (including construction) accounted for 29.32% of GDP in 2008. The leading industry is machinery, followed by chemical industry (plastic production, pharmaceuticals), while mining, metallurgy and textile industry seemed to be losing importance in the past two decades. In spite of the significant drop in the last decade, food industry is still giving up to 14% of total industrial production and amounts to 7-8% of the country's exports.

Agriculture accounted for 4.3% of GDP in 2008 and along with the food industry occupied roughly 7.7% of the labor force.

Tourism employs nearly 150 thousand people and the total income from tourism was 4 billion euros in 2008. One of Hungary’s top tourist destinations is Lake Balaton, the largest freshwater lake in Central Europe, with a number of 1,2 million visitors in 2008. The most visited region is Budapest, the Hungarian capital attracted 3.61 million visitors in 2008. Hungary was the world’s 24th most visited country in 2011.

Slovakia

The smallest but the second most powerful V4 economy is that of Slovakia (GDP of USD $158.428 billion total, 70th in the world). Along with the Czech Republic, Slovakia was the most developed country of the Eastern Bloc. The first years after the revolution in 1989 saw stagnation. At the end of the 1990s, the economy grew and attracted much investment.

Demographics

The population is 64,301,710 inhabitants, which would rank 22nd largest in the world and 4th in Europe (very similar in size to France, Italy or the UK) if V4 were a single country. Most people live in Poland (38 million), followed by the Czech Republic (nearly 11 million), Hungary (nearly 10 million) and Slovakia (5.5 million).

V4 capitals

Other important cities

Rotating presidency

The country holding the Group's presidency changes each year, in July:

International Visegrád Fund

The only solid organization of the Visegrád co-operation is the International Visegrád Fund (IVF), established in 1999, with its seat in Bratislava. According to a decision of the prime ministers, the Fund has an annual budget of EUR 8 million as of 2014. With more than 11 annual deadlines and irregular calls for proposals the fund awards grants, scholarships and research fellowships, and artist residencies. Main recipients of its funding are citizens and non-governmental organizations from the V4 region, as well as countries of the Western Balkans, the Eastern Partnerships, and other countries.

Visegrád Battlegroup

On 12 May 2011, Polish Defence Minister Bogdan Klich said that Poland will lead a new EU Battlegroup of the Visegrád Group. The decision was made at the V4 defence ministers' meeting in Levoča, Slovakia, and the battlegroup would become operational and be placed on standby in the first half of 2016. The ministers also agreed that the V4 militaries should hold regular exercises under the auspices of the NATO Response Force, with the first such exercise to be held in Poland in 2013. The battlegroup would include members of V4 and Ukraine.

On 14 March 2014, signed a pact on a joint military body within the European Union, in response to the 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine. The deal involves joint military exercises, coordinated defence procurement and joint defence development of the four central European countries.

Expert Working Group on Energy

In 2002 Hungary initiated establishment of an Expert Working Group on Energy. This expert group meets once or twice a year in V4 capitals on a rotation basis, and the head of the host country delegation always chairs the meeting.

On 27 April 2006 the Working Group met in Prague with the aim of discussing recommendations for V4 energy ministers concerning topics negotiated at ministerial level meetings. The WG elaborated recommendations concerning four groups of problems:

Visegrad Patent Institute

Created by an agreement signed in Bratislava on February 26, 2015, the Institute aims at operating as an International Searching Authority (ISA) and International Preliminary Examining Authorities (IPEA) under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) as from July 1, 2016.