Anatomy of an Act of Reserve
Germany and the Visegrád Group
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Although Germany supported the accession of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia to NATO and the EU, there is to this day no specific German Visegrád policy. The reason for this is that EU enlargement had priority over a genuine Mitteleuropapolitik. Such a policy would meet with historically founded distrust in the East and the West. Bilateral relations have priority. The weak relations with the Visegrád group result not least from the structural historical and political differences between Poland and the “smaller countries”, which prevent the Visegrád Group from forming an attractive forum of cooperation. However, in order to improve their ability to act within the EU, it would be advisable to give Visegrád more substance and strengthen cooperation with the group.
(Osteuropa 10/2006, pp. 5–14)