Visegrad Group's Cooperation And Divergence In The EU

Visegrad Group is an important subregional cooperation organization within the EU.On February 15,1991,the prime ministers of Poland,Czechoslovakia and Hungary signed the Visegrad Declaration in the city of Visegrad in northern Hungary,proclaiming the establishment of the cooperation organization.After January 1993,Czechoslovakia became two countries,the Czech Republic and Slovakia,and the members of the Visegrad Group have since then become four countries,so it is often referred to as the V4 Group.The V4 countries have joined the EU for more than 15 years.After completing the process of integration,learning and after joining the EU in 2004-with their continuous development of politics and economy-,the V4 is no longer a "unidirectional recipient" of EU policy,and it is not willing to only adjust its own activities and only adapt the EU policy requirements.Instead,the V4 gradually has begun to voice for own or its regional interests,express its own demands in the process of EU policy formulation and decision-making process in accordance with the needs of its own interests.However,due to the inherent characteristics of non-institutional and non-binding nature of V4,as well as the differences between the four countries in historical and practical issues,V4 has not been able to overcome the differences in all EU issues and adopt a common position in order to fight for a greater result.This paper uses literature analysis,case studies and comparative research methods to study the behaviour of V4 in the major events of the EU during the past decade,and selects the major crises encountered by the EU in recent years:the Ukrainian crisis,the Brexit crisis and the migration crisis.It uses the theory of quasi-alliance analysis to study the motivation of V4 Group's cooperation and divergence within the EU.This paper compares and analyses the actions taken by the V4 in these crises and the reasons of its actions,and try to explore how the political cooperation between the V4 countries takes place.The main assumption of this paper is that as a loose quasi-alliance,the cooperation between the V4 members lacks mandatory constraints.In the cooperation of specific events,the degree of coordination and solidarity depends on whether there are security threats,national interests,ideology and common cultural identity.When the four countries have a highly consistent common interest in one or more factors of these four elements,they will strengthen solidarity and cooperation to protect the agreed interests;in case when there are contradictory differences in security,national interests,ideology and cultural identity,the four countries are likely to give up the possibility of seeking cooperation.