The Visegrad Group and Beyond: Security Cooperation in Central Europe

Since the Soviet bloc collapsed in 1989, the strategic priority of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe has been their integration with the West, in particularly joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU). The established democracies and market economies of Western Europe and North America represent the model to which the countries of Central and Eastern Europe aspire. They see NATO and the EU as the only bodies capable of providing them with credible security guarantees and economic security. For them, membership of NATO and the EU will both symbolize their full integration with the West and underpin the democratization and reform of their societies and economies. In short, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are seeking to return to the democratic Europe from which they were separated by forty years of Soviet domination. At the same time, they have sought to normalize and re-build relations with each other and with their Western and former Soviet neighbours. For the most part, this has taken place in the context of bilateral relationships: through the negotiation of state treaties guaranteeing existing borders and minority rights and committing states to develop cooperative relations; and through various more practical forms of bilateral political, economic and military cooperation.