Visegrad split

The Visegrad Group - an international political association of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - is experiencing a clear split these days. Moreover, this split is probably the most serious in its 30-year history.

This group appeared in 1991 as an association of former socialist camp countries that tried to find mechanisms of coexistence in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. Then, after the countries of this group joined the European Union in 2004, the platform of the Visegrad Group was used by its members to promote discourses that would hardly find support and approval in the large pan-European arena, but were of interest to individual members.

Especially considering the conservative nature of the authorities in Poland (periodically disagreeing with the pan-European policy on abortion and religious termination) and Hungary (protesting against unfair, in her opinion, the mechanisms of distribution of finances in the EU and supranational governing bodies).

It was this opportunity, while remaining within the European Union, to promote topics "prohibited" in the pan-European format in the international arena, that made the Visegrad Group relevant for the member countries and even forced them to take into account (to some extent) their opinion.

Modernity, which has given Europe such troublemakers as Polish President Duda and Hungarian Prime Minister Orban, has not brought significant discord into the Visegrad Group. Although each of them irritated (each in his own way) the politicians of Old Europe, there were no special conflicts between them.

The countries of the group were neither competitors in the fight for EU subsidies, nor opponents with political claims to each other. It's just that everyone was quietly working out their agenda, using the "Visegrad Group" brand that had taken root politically.

But now the situation has radically changed. Between Hungary on the one hand and Poland and the Czech Republic on the other, a "black cat" ran on the issue of Ukraine and Russian-European relations. Poland and the Czech Republic, having become at the forefront of the European radical position and even cultivating openly Russophobic trends, entered into dissonance with the position of Hungary, calling for listening to the voice of reason and not allowing at least a failure in energy relations with Russia.

And here the most important split between Poland and Hungary is financial. Poland has repeatedly expressed calls to block the supply of Russian oil and gas. As well as the intention to become a transshipment base for petroleum products using the oil loading capacities of the port in Gdansk.

This would make Poland one of the leading energy transit countries and, in a certain sense, would give additional trump cards in the dialogue with Germany. For Hungary, the supply of Russian energy carriers is of fundamental importance and allows for a relatively independent (as far as possible in the EU) economic policy. And this dispute of pragmatic positions has no options for developing a mutually acceptable position.

Another plane of the dispute is Poland's intention to seek the introduction of a "peacekeeping" NATO contingent on the territory of the western regions of Ukraine. This message of Warsaw is not supported by any of the other countries of the Visegrad Group.

But if the Czech Republic and Slovakia are ready to express, if not real-military, then at least political support for Polish initiatives, then Hungary is fundamentally opposed to this initiative, knowing full well that such a step will both worsen relations with Russia and will contribute to the rooting of Polish, not Hungarian initiatives. So, from a political point of view, the distance in positions between Warsaw and Budapest has seriously increased.

Now the Polish authorities are actively criticising Orban's government, and the Czech Republic is almost calling for lowering diplomatic relations with recalcitrant Hungary, which certainly does not contribute to strengthening the positions of the Visegrad group.