18.01.2026 (Caucasian Journal). Last month, the Caucasian Journal convened the first Visegrad Four + Georgia webinar, “Political Differences, Practical Unity: The Visegrad Experience,” organized in cooperation with our project partners: Arnika (Czechia), EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy (Czechia), Visegrad Insight (Poland), and the Central European Forum (Slovakia).
This webinar marked the first event within the project “Visegrad Lessons for Georgia – Overcoming Political Divides through Practical Cooperation.” Further expert discussions will follow, focusing on various fields, including business and economics, scientific cooperation, and environmental cooperation.
▶ ქართულად: The Georgian version is here.
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In a landmark webinar hosted by the Caucasian Journal, experts from the Visegrad Four (V4) and Georgia gathered to discuss a pressing question: How can nations maintain practical cooperation when political leaders are at odds? As Georgia navigates a challenging European integration path, the V4 experience offers a "realistic" model—not of perfect unity, but of resilient, functional collaboration.
Key Takeaways for Georgia
1. "Low Politics" vs. "High Politics": Ladislav Cabada (Metropolitan University Prague) emphasized that clashes in "high politics" (ideology, foreign policy) should not stop "low politics" cooperation. Trade, scientific exchange, and environmental protection must remain active even when leaders disagree.
2. The "TRIO" and South Caucasus Formats: Kakha Gogolashvili (Rondeli Foundation) highlighted that while the V4 was a lobbyist for EU entry, Georgia can look toward a "South Caucasian format" (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) for regional stability, using V4-style sectoral cooperation (SMEs, environment) as a blueprint.
"Now there is another format that is possible to use—the South Caucasian format between Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. These three countries can cooperate and use the experience of the Visegrad Group" — Kakha Gogolashvili
3. The Resilience of Civil Society: István Gyarmati and Giorgi Robakidze warned that the West must not "give up" on Georgia because of government friction. Instead, support for civil society should increase when official channels become difficult.
4. The Visegrad Fund Model: The International Visegrad Fund (IVF) remains the "only remaining asset" of true cooperation for the V4. For Georgia, creating a decentralized Civil Society Forum could protect independent media and fight disinformation.
"The Visegrad project itself is an act of defiance against history." — Marta Simeckova, Project Forum.
Watch 1-minute video highlights from Webinar 1 here. The full text version of the webinar is below:
POLITICAL DIFFERENCES, PRACTICAL UNITY: THE VISEGRAD EXPERIENCE
Alexander KAFFKA, editor-in-chief of Caucasian Journal: Despite significant political disagreements, the Visegrad Group has managed to preserve cooperation in key aspects. Today's discussion is not about idealizing the Visegrad model, but about understanding it realistically, what worked, where it was fragile, and which lessons, if any, might be relevant for Georgia. With that, let me turn to our first question. What is the single most important factor that allowed the Visegrad group to maintain cooperation despite serious political disagreements?
Giorgi ROBAKIDZE: My name is Giorgi Robakidze, I'm a former Georgian diplomat, resigned two years ago due to the famous events going on in Georgia, and I used to be the deputy ambassador in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 2016 to 2020. Plus, I wrote my PhD on the rise of the populist and radical parties in Visegrad 4.
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| 1-minute highlights are here |
So I'm a bit skeptical, unless these forces remain in power, for the more active cooperation between the Visegrad 4 countries. What concerns Georgia, the best example for Georgia is that the Visegrad 4 gives the opportunity of cooperation without institutionalization. And I think this is a good model, especially taking into account the completely different interests of the actors in our region.
But once again, with this government in Georgia now, I am really skeptical about any cooperation around, because we also see that the relationship not only with the European Union has been spoiled, also with the neighbors, especially with Azerbaijan after this transit issue, which happened a couple of weeks ago. However, the example of the Visegrad could be very useful for Georgia. Thank you.
AK: Thank you, George. Mr. István Gyarmati, please.
István GYARMATI: Thank you very much, and good morning. Thanks very much for the invitation, especially to the Visegrad Fund, because the Visegrad Fund is probably the only remaining asset of cooperation within the Visegrad Group. If you look at the communiqué that was issued by the heads of state last week, the only positive example that they were able to mention was the Visegrad Fund.
So congratulations to the Visegrad Fund, and I wish a long life and a lot of success. That also means that I would formalize the question a little bit more radically than George. George has been a diplomat until two years ago, so he was still diplomatic. I was a diplomat 20 years ago, so I can be less diplomatic.
My question is, is there significant cooperation, political cooperation in the first instance, within the Visegrad Group? And my answer is "no". They still continue to have regular meetings, show some kind of life, but it's more of a declaratory existence.
The group now consists of two groups. The first group is Poland alone, and the second group is the rest. But the rest, the remaining three countries, are also three different groups. Because Mr. Orban has a very defined, consistent policy. I'm not discussing the content, I'm just telling how consistent it is.
Mr. Fico is more of a talk-show than doing something. He's talking about and promising a lot of things. And then in the last moment, in most cases, he bends to the pressure of the EU. So he is absolutely unreliable.
And the third group is the Czech Republic. We don't know what Prime Minister Babiš will do, he has some serious constraints. The first constraint is the President, who is one of the best in Europe, I would say. President Petr Pavel is one of the best existing functioning presidents in Europe, definitely in the Visegrad Group.
And the second constraint is the Czech economy. The Czech economy is so strongly tied to the German economy that whatever and whoever prime minister in the Czech Republic, their room for maneuver is very limited.
If you look at the other part of the equation, Georgia: Georgia is extremely difficult to cooperate with at this point. Whoever is at odds with Russia will not be able to cooperate with Georgia.
Also, the cooperation, which has been very important and very successful - the cooperation of the civil society - is and will be increasingly difficult with Georgia, not because of the civil society, but because of the Georgian government's relationship with the Georgian civil society. Every government which is growing authoritarian or even worse, hates civil society. And we see already how this current Georgian government is turning against the Georgian civil society.
So it is becoming increasingly difficult, but also increasingly necessary. So I think if we are looking at what to do with the Georgian civil society, usually the problem is that if cooperation with the civil society is becoming increasingly difficult, our highly esteemed Western partners give up quickly. If you look at NATO, I'm a Hungarian, and I experience that NATO is almost openly telling that your country is beyond repair, because we don't like your government.
Again, I'm not suggesting you should agree or not with the Hungarian government. But if NATO thinks that the Hungarian government is difficult, for me, it would mean that they should increase support for the Hungarian civil society. What's happening is the opposite.
They say not that the Hungarian government is a problem, but Hungary is a problem, so we ignore Hungary. And that's what will happen with Georgia as well, not only with NATO, but with many others.
A lot of lip service, much less support for the civil society. So I'm not jumping to the conclusions of the four webinars. But I think if we want to suggest something relevant, something important, this is what we should concentrate on, how the West should not give up Georgia, especially not the civil society.
We should concentrate not on what our governments want, but what we think is the right thing to do.
On the contrary, it should increase its support for civil society. It's, of course, difficult for the Visegrad group because some Visegrad countries experience similar problems. Nevertheless, I think what we should concentrate not what our governments want, but what we think is the right thing to do. Thank you.
AK: Thank you very much. Indeed, the support to Georgian civil society was promised, but never actually realized, at least in this scale, which was promised. Mr. Viktor Danek, please.
Viktor DANĚK: Thank you very much for the opportunity and for this event. I am Viktor Danek with the EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy, Prague.
Coming back to your original question, I wanted to emphasize that it very much depends on the perspectives, how you look at V4. If you look at it as a vehicle for projecting power and defending common interests on EU level, then I fully agree with the diagnosis Mr. István did a while back. It's a patient on life support right now.
When we look at the past, it worked only in times or occasions where there was such a huge political agenda or topic in Brussels that would tie those countries together. Such was the issue of migration and the mandatory quotas. When there is no such thing that ties those countries together, then there is no reason for V4 platform to function. And that's the state of affairs we are seeing today.
We can look at it on a more technical level, less political in the intergovernmental cooperation, where I think the opportunities V4 platform offers are largely unused, especially in the area of investment in infrastructure, cooperation in education, and others.
V4 actually is a tremendous success story. The International Visegrad Fund is a perfect example of that: It's working very successfully for many years, promoting a lot of important activities that would otherwise very likely not be promoted.
And then we can look at it also from the perspective of cooperation in the non-governmental sector. And there, I think it's actually a tremendous success story. The International Visegrad Fund, which was mentioned, is a perfect example of that. It's working very successfully for many years, promoting a lot of important activities that would otherwise very likely not be promoted, especially when we see the political developments and shrinking space for NGOs in a big part of V4 countries.
It's ever more important now, I think, to have such a platform and have some secure funding. So, I think, it's something that can actually serve as an inspiration for other regional cooperations. And coming back to the question of Andrej Babiš’s involvement, I think that he definitely would be, or he is quite vocally interested in reviving V4.
He remembers very well the times of this success of V4, if you look at it that way, when V4 commonly was against the mandatory quotas on asylum seekers. But there is, again, a strong limit. As long as Poland's prime minister is Donald Tusk and Hungary's prime minister is Viktor Orbán, there will not be any revival of V4 cooperation.
It's as simple as that, in my view. The disagreements on this Poland-Hungarian side are so strong that it's making it difficult to expect that this is going to change anytime soon. We have to see how the elections in Hungary end up.
A little bit later on, there'll be elections in Poland. Things might change. But at this political constellation, it's highly unlikely, I think.
When we saw the summit of presidents in Hungary a while back, it was even funny how difficult it was for the presidents to find a common topic to discuss. So this is self-explanatory. This is another limit to the Visegrad cooperation. It's very much dependent on the political constellation in each country. This needs to be taken into account. Thank you.
AK: Thank you very much. Any other opinions, comments? If not, we can move to the next question. Kakha Gogolashvili, please.
Kakha GOGOLASHVILI: Thank you for inviting and this opportunity. Interesting discussion. I think that Visegrad 4 group cooperation was especially interesting for Georgia, at a certain stage of our integration with the EU.
As we talk about civil society, I was actively participating in this process, taking the experience of Visegrad cooperation for three aspiring EU membership countries like Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine were very active, it was 5-6 years ago, especially after receiving visa-free in 2017, we've been all very active in order to cooperate and to lobby for the integration of these three countries into the EU. And at this stage, we even developed a special memorandum together with Ukrainian and Moldovan civil society organizations, acting within the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum.
And we also asked other countries’ civil society like Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus to support our cooperation, to strengthen, and to make something special for EU-Eastern Partnership to create a special segment of cooperation with these three countries. At the initial stage, as I remember, even before splitting Czechoslovakia, the idea existed that these three countries should cooperate, but then four joined the efforts after splitting Czechoslovakia.
These countries started this cooperation to encourage and to coordinate their integration into EU. And that was a very good experience. They had a long list of cooperation fields - I remember there were around 40. At some point, I studied this experience - not everywhere the cooperation was fruitful. But the main thing is that, before they became members of the EU, they lobbied very much together the issue of focusing EU's interest on these four countries and helping them to adopt instruments, policies, etc, integrating them closer to EU.
So in this regard, for our cooperation with Moldova and Ukraine it was very important. We tried to push our governments to establish such a format. Finally, it was established that the EU recognized the format called TRIO. And TRIO was also mentioned in Eastern Partnership documents.
So, practically, we established a similar format before, and civil society played an important role in this. We invented this TRIO format. Actually, the TRIO was named by Andrius Kubilius, who is now the Lithuanian EU commissioner to the European Commission. But before he named this and supported, the Georgian, Moldovan and Ukrainian civil society organizations worked intensively, meeting European leaders and politicians, to support this idea.
Finally, it was supported, and it was created. But now Georgia started too much distancing itself from the European integration process. And cooperation on the official level between Georgian, EU and the Moldovan governments became problematic and practically impossible.
Now there is another format that is possible to use - the South Caucasian format between Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. These three countries can cooperate and use the experience of the Visegrad Group.
Of course, civil society continues cooperation and very useful in this regard are the formats created by the European Union, especially the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, where our three delegations frequently coordinate their proposals, and exchange views. But still difficult to promote anything on this level.
But now there is another format that is possible to use. I think this is South Caucasian format between Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan. In this case, these three countries can cooperate, and use the experience of Visegrad Group.
You asked the question, what is the value of Visegrad Group now? Of course, after joining European Union, the aim or objective of lobbying for their membership in EU no longer exists.
And it weakened the cooperation importantly within the Visegrad Group. But still, they are geographically very close. They have many fields which are important, like people-to-people contacts, regional cooperation, smaller projects of trade, cooperation, and cultural exchange.
All these can be used and realized within the South Caucasian context. So Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan have different orientations, but still they share the same borders. They are members of the Council of Europe.
They are European countries, actually, and the civil societies of all these three countries can actively cooperate in studying the Visegrad experience in all these fields that I mentioned and try to establish similar type of projects. Very important are people-to-people contacts, contacts between journalists, think tanks, sectoral NGOs working on the environment, for example, cooperation between NGOs working on small and medium business development, and many other things. And the experience of Visegrad Group, which counts already around 30 years, could be successfully adopted.
I think that civil society in all three countries is quite interested in cooperation. We have many contacts with them as a non-governmental organization, the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies.
And we know by our practice that cooperation is absolutely possible, especially after Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s reconciliation, which goes on very actively. Thank you.
AK: Thank you very much, Kakha. I truly hope Georgian civil society survives this challenging period, because even inviting experts to this seminar from Georgia was unexpectedly difficult for us. Many people just didn't react because they saw this as something supported by European sponsors. So the situation is not easy in civil society in Georgia. Marzenna Guz-Vetter, please.
There is a big chance to strengthen our common heritage in terms of the communist past of the transformation process, and we could think about creating something like Visegrad Four Civil Society Forum, which would give us a stronger say also on the EU level.
Marzenna GUZ-VETTER: Hello, I'm a senior fellow at Visegrad Insight and I fully agree with Istvan that there is no chance for any serious political cooperation between the leaders of the Visegrad 4 at the moment. So this cooperation is de facto not existent.
But I think that we should not give up. And there is, in my opinion, really a big chance to strengthen our common heritage in terms of the communist past of the transformation process. And we could think about creating something like Visegrad Four Civil Society Forum, which would give us a stronger say also on the EU level.
Why? Because on the basis of my experience with the Visegrad Insight in Warsaw, I think there are so many initiatives, exchanges I already faced within this group. And they are not only productive, but I see that we are culturally, in terms of our mentality, very close, even closer than with people from Western Europe, and this Visegrad Four Civil Society Forum would give us also the opportunity to cooperate with countries like Georgia, where we will be in the lead working for the European Commission for many years.
I have closely followed the Eastern Partnership developments, also the Eastern Partnership civil society forum. And I must say it was not the best experience. It was much formalized. There was not enough money. It was mainly driven by Western European experts. Sometimes, politicians did not allow people from the civil society forum of the European neighborhood policy to participate. So, as many projects of this type, driven by EU institutions or governments, this was more of a closed shop.
And in the end, in all EU programs for the Eastern Partnership countries, the smallest amount that was provided was the amount for the civil society. There were many meetings, but they didn't trust them too much, because it’s a diplomatic world, and people from civil society are often not diplomatic. So, for these officials, it was always a bit of a risk. I don't know how money from the Visegrad Fund could be used for this, but maybe such an initiative to have, maybe not a V4 civil society forum, but a platform of exchange to strengthen civil society in the V4 countries, because this is always a problem.
As a Pole, I would also like to say that, according to the latest polls, we have also a right drift towards radicalism and nationalism in Poland. So, Tusk is still there, but we do not know how things will evolve in the next years. In my opinion, if we talk about how to incorporate Georgia, how to reach out to Georgian civil society, I think there are a lot of topics we could, as V4 civil society organizations, propose to them as regards protecting independent media, media literacy, fight against disinformation (the Russian disinformation is very strong in all V4 countries, but in Georgia also), and the whole transformational heritage - our experiences in joining the EU - so that we keep contact with those few people still in Georgia who have the courage to fight and to undermine this government policy. Thank you.
AK: Thank you very much, Marzena. Any other opinions or additions, or comments, please?
Oszkár ROGINER-HOFMEISTER: My name is Oszkár Roginer-Hofmeister. Thank you for including me. Similarly to Viktor Daněk, I come from EUROPEUM Institute for European Politics. I would only like to point out that the format such as the International Visegrad Fund (IVF) also has its limits. And we can also already see this in the past 10 years by the type of applications that were granted funding.
This connects it to the political constraints that emanate from the non-collaboration of the members. For example, if we look into what projects were granted by the IVF 15 years ago, these were more political projects connected to elections, freedom of the media, and the rule of law. Today, that's not possible.
And if we look into what projects are granted, the majority of them deal with folklore, anthropological research, sports and youth inclusion. The political topics are more in the background of these granted applications. This reflects the strange relationship between the four countries.
This is something Georgia needs to take into consideration, that if there would be a format interconnecting Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, similarly as the V4 did ahead of EU accession, because of the shared heritage, similar socio-political traditions etc, it also has to take into consideration these constraints which can emanate from the rigid political circumstances which can emerge in the future. The V4 started to exist because of the shared post-socialist and the shared capitalist heritage. And it was assumed that this would carry on in the future. The problem is that in the past 15-25 years, these countries developed in different pace, in different directions. And sometimes the political agenda does not allow for shared visions of the future, which also then translates into the aspirations of civil society.
Giorgi ROBAKIDZE: Our organisation, EU Awareness Centre, was recently created in Brussels, unifying mostly the former diplomats, is actively seeking for the partners. Therefore, I would be very grateful if the organisations here would be interested in cooperation with us, and we can later on discuss these issues separately. And I would like to agree with what Kakha Gogolashvili, that when there was interest and possibility for integration, Georgia already had this kind of a format with Ukraine and Moldova, something similar to V4. And there was interest because EU prefers to work with the regions rather than the separate countries.
It was like the Baltic States, or V4. Unfortunately, in the Georgia’s surrounding - the South Caucasus - it was not possible at that time, because Azerbaijan had different interests, Armenia was a totally pro-Russian country. Now things changed, Armenia turned to Europe, there is the possibility to cooperation with Georgia, but Georgia turned again back to Europe and is facing Russia again.
Unless the situation changes, I agree with Kakha that there is no possibility of cooperation concerning European integration. But this cooperation must be going on the level of the civil society, the media, and the business associations. And we're going to appreciate all kinds of cooperation.
And the very final remark: when I'm going around in Brussels, I'm always telling to our European counterparts that the civil society in Georgia needs help now, unless the civil society turns into the same situation as in Belarus, where there is no active civil society inside the country, and they are only covering the country from outside. So this help from the EU, from the member states, is needed now, and we're going appreciate any help which we can get. Thank you so much, and sorry for this interruption.
AK: Thank you very much, Giorgi. I should only suggest one brief question, which might be answered in one sentence. What is the one most important lesson Georgia should take from the Visegrad experience?
Marta SIMECKOVA: Thank you, Alexander, for inviting me and organizing this inspiring discussion. I'm the one who is in academia, not from politics and diplomacy, but representing civil society in Slovakia, working at the edge of culture and societal reflection. And I would like to strengthen what my Visegrad Insight colleague said, and also Oskar said. On one hand, it's true that the International Visegrad Fund will be remembered in the history of our countries as the most important part of all Visegrad history, and also the most resilient.
Once the funds are simply decided and distributed by politicians, it can be a problem, and maybe it’s time to think about another framework.
And it really made a difference in understanding each other. The Visegrad project itself is an act of defiance, as Martin Bútora says, against history, because history is very asymmetric in the Visegrad countries. There were times when Hungary was flourishing, but Slovakia was not. However, it is time to speak also about the character of the International Visegrad Fund. It is actually governed by politicians, which would not be itself a problem; it's governed by the Board of Ambassadors, but it can become a problem when (Oskar spoke about it) the number of projects that would not be completely “innocent” is diminishing with years, which is just mirroring the political situation in Visegrad. It's maybe time to think about another model for cooperation of civil societies, and the absolute necessity of such cooperation. Once the funds are simply decided and distributed by politicians, it can be a problem, and maybe it’s time to think about another framework. Thank you once again.
Ladislav CABADA: I'm from Metropolitan University in Prague, just very briefly on the question about the lesson to be learned from Visegrad. The clashes in the sphere of “high politics” - like position vis-a-vis the Ukrainian crisis, vis-a-vis the EU - must not intersect the cooperation in the sphere of ”low politics”. I mean, if you want to cooperate in the region, you are inevitably bound to, because of the geopolitical givens of your country, then try to establish, despite the political problems, try to establish trade, economic, intellectual, and other contacts with the neighboring countries, and that's how it can work. Thank you very much.
Magda JAKUBOWSKA: I think that for Georgia, it is quite important to seek to see the experiences of the civil society, the underground civil society, and the fighting civil society. In Visegrad 4, we have great examples, and we also give a lot of support. I know that many Georgian organizations are moving to Prague and Warsaw, so I think it is important that we highlight that, and that there is this mutual help to one another.
And also, taking advantage of independent media and boosting those independent outlets that are still there is something that we can really do from Visegrad without a huge effort or financial struggle in that sense. Thank you, and that's my idea there.
AK: I'm very satisfied with this discussion. It was excellent, and all those comments were extremely thoughtful and very concrete. And let me remind you, this is just our first event. Our series will continue, and I'm looking forward to seeing you at our future events.
About the participants:• Ladislav CABADA, Professor in Political Science and Czech History and Vice-Rector for Research, Quality and Development at Metropolitan University Prague, Czech Republic• Viktor DANĚK, Executive Deputy Director, EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy, Czech Republic• David DONDUA, Former Georgian Ambassador to NATO, OSCE, Greece, Serbia, Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington, EPLO Permanent Representative to IACA, Chairman of the Board at the EU Awareness Centre, Georgia• Kakha GOGOLASHVILI, Senior Fellow, Director of European Studies, Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (Rondeli Foundation), Georgia• Marzenna GUZ-VETTER, Independent expert and journalist specializing in EU affairs and Polish-German relations; former Director of the European Commission Representation in Poland (2015-2016, 2022-2023); Member of Team EUROPE DIRECT Polska expert network, Poland• István GYARMATI, Professor, Milton Friedman University, President of the Foundation for Development and Democratic Transition (ICDT), Former Secretary General of Hungarian Atlantic Council, Hungary
• Vít HLOUŠEK, Professor of Political Science, Metropolitan University, Prague, Czech Republic• Krzysztof IZDEBSKI, Legal and Policy Officer at Stefan Batory Foundation; Marcin Król Fellow at Visegrad Insight; Member of Consul Democracy Foundation's Council; expert at Open Contracting Partnership, Poland• Magda JAKUBOWSKA, Vice President and Director of Operations, the Res Publica Foundation, Poland• Ewa MONCURE, Board Member at Res Publica Nowa Foundation; former Spokesperson and Head of Communications at Frontex (European Border and Coast Guard Agency), Poland• Giorgi ROBAKIDZE, Executive Director, EU Awareness Centre, Georgia• Oszkár ROGINER-HOFMEISTER, Head of the Global Europe Programme, EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy, Czech Republic• Joanna ROHOZINSKA, Regional Director for Europe and Eurasia at IREX (based in Warsaw); previously Resident Program Director for Europe at International Republican Institute (IRI), Poland• Marta SIMECKOVA, Chairwoman, Project Forum (Občianske združenie Projekt Fórum), founder, Amnesty International Slovakia, Slovakia• Martin SKALSKÝ, Chairman, NGO Arnika, head of Center for Citizen Support programme, Czech Republic
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