04. ledna, 2026 Dominik Héjj
It is worth noting that the V4 lost significance in Poland during the rule of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party. It is remarkable in the context of the previous years, as it has usually been liberal governments that perceived the Visegrad cooperation in a more sceptical way, instead prioritising the strengthening of ties with the West.
This time, however, things were a little different. When a liberal government led by Donald Tusk took power in the October 2023 elections, it largely continued the integration course set by its conservative predecessor. This course was directed northward, targeting cooperation with the countries around the Baltic Sea, with which Poland began to be linked primarily by the issue of international security. Also worth mentioning is the significant improvement in relations with Czechia, where Prime Minister Petr Fiala was the first to find common ground with his Polish counterparts, followed by President Petr Pavel after the 2023 presidential elections.
Regardless of political connotations, there was a prevailing belief in Poland that it was necessary to support Ukraine and provide it with as much assistance as possible, including military aid. The Visegrad format began to transform into a forum for Polish-Czech-Slovak cooperation, which until the end of September 2023, i.e. until Robert Fico’s victory in the parliamentary elections in Slovakia, was relatively enthusiastic about Ukraine. However, the very name of Visegrad Group ceased to appear in the Polish public debate. There was more talk of the Bucharest Nine (B9), which includes the countries of NATO’s eastern border. Hungary became something of a pariah in the existing Central European formats.
Without exaggeration, the year 2022 devastated relations with Hungary. In opinion polls conducted after the outbreak of the war, in which Polish respondents were asked about their relationship with other nations, Hungarians saw a significant drop in popularity. Only Russians and Belarusians fell further.
The idea of the Polish-Hungarian friendship has not recovered even three years after the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine. A certain symbol of this cooling was the reaction of the PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński in April 2022 to the words of Viktor Orbán. Three days after the parliamentary elections in Hungary, on 6 April 2022, during a press conference, Orbán said of Russian war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine: ‘We live in times of mass manipulation, when one does not know whether to believe what one sees.’
This apparent attempt to downplay Russia’s responsibility for genocide in Ukraine was met with a strong response from Jarosław Kaczyński, who stated in an interview that if anyone cannot see what happened in Bucha, they should go to an eye doctor. On 9 April 2022, Orbán’s press secretary released the following statement from the prime minister: ‘We condemn the genocide in Bucha. We support an international investigation.’
The Hungarian government’s actions are considered pro-Russian by a large part of Polish society, including the supporters of PiS. It is therefore no coincidence that when, after the European Parliament elections, Viktor Orbán announced the need to create a new political faction, it did not arouse much enthusiasm within PiS. Orbán did indeed become one of the founding fathers of Patriots for Europe, but his Polish political counterparts, it seemed, were not rushing to join the faction, despite the efforts of the Hungarian Fidesz-KDNP government coalition.
PiS thus remained the largest group among the European Conservatives and Reformists. Both factions naturally agree on many issues, but the expected Polish-Hungarian merger with Fidesz did not materialise. A year and a half after the European elections, despite Orbán’s loud proclamations, Patriots for Europe is not a strong group in Brussels, even though Andrej Babiš, the winner of the recent Czech parliamentary elections, was involved in its creation.
The erosion of the Visegrad Group is being exacerbated by the exhaustion of the original rationale for cooperation. It should be remembered that the V4 was created for the purpose of coordinating the process of accession to the European Union. After 2004, the group was reformatted into the V4+ with the aim of sharing good practices with other countries aspiring to EU membership. In this regard, regular meetings of prime ministers before European Council summits or of individual ministers before EU sectoral council meetings were essential. These meetings have largely died out, although meetings at lower levels continue to take place.
In 2025, the political and social situation is different than it was three years earlier. Growing reluctance to help Ukrainians and war fatigue allow for slightly more consideration of different opinions. The biggest proponent of reviving the Visegrad format is Viktor Orbán, who has announced the possibility of resuscitating the V4 at least twice. He did so after the election victories of Robert Fico and Andrej Babiš.
Orbán would like to return to the role of leader of the Visegrad Four, which he enjoyed from 2015 because of the ongoing migration crisis at the time. Because it was the Hungarian prime minister who paved the way in clashes with Brussels (as we learn from materials published by the Hungarian investigative portal Direkt36, this was done, among other things, with the help of a spy network built up in European institutions), Hungary’s position in the V4 format and in relations with Poland was disproportionately strong. While Slovakia and Czechia quite naturally perceive Polish leadership in this format, Hungary still has ambitions to dominate it.
A return to the Visegrad Group in its pre-2022 form seems impossible, even if PiS wins the 2027 parliamentary elections in Poland. It seems that the values espoused by this political camp, including a strong anti-Russian stance, are incompatible with Orbán’s ‘dovish’ attitude towards Vladimir Putin’s Russian regime. The Hungarian prime minister will therefore have to look elsewhere. On social media, it can be seen that one of the factions of the Polish Confederation maintains regular contact with Hungarian government circles. This is a wing close to Krzysztof Bosak, whose MEPs have joined the Patriots for Europe faction. From Fidesz’s perspective, this youthful enthusiasm should not go to waste.
It is clear that Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary could cooperate in various formats. There is no shortage of topics for mutual consultation, to say the least. One of them will be negotiations on the European Union’s Multiannual Financial Framework. It is in the region’s interest to ensure that as much of the European budget as possible continues to be directed towards cohesion policy, which also targets the Visegrad Four countries.
Another potential area of cooperation is climate policy. The countries in the region agree that a rapid transition to green energy is out of the question. However, it seems unlikely that cooperation in the field of energy will be established, as Hungary and Slovakia are not doing much to rid themselves of their dependence on Russian fossil fuels.
The individual countries in the group are also deeply divided in their attitudes toward Russia. Fico is much closer to Orbán than to Poland. Czech policy toward Russia will probably not be fundamentally affected by Babiš’s ANO movement taking over the government. This is not only because of the explosions in Vrbětice in 2014, in which Russia was involved, as we have known since 2021. Andrej Babiš is undoubtedly so economically tied to the West that he will not risk a rapprochement with Russia that could jeopardise his business reputation.
The main question is whether or not Orbán’s Hungary, loyal to Russia, will desire to overturn the geopolitical table and gain a better position in the world. Viktor Orbán wants to end the paradigm of Hungary as a country defeated in two world wars. In this respect, he remains unpredictable. He strives to restore Hungary’s former position and respect for it. It is the source of his great effort to participate in a forum deciding the future of Ukraine. Orbán, who has repeatedly denied Kyiv the right to self-determination, represents an absolutely anti-Ukrainian approach in the Central European club, which is one that the Polish government has a difficult time identifying with.
Edited for length. First published in November 2025. Translated from Czech by Marta Zielińska.
The article was written in the framework of the project Reflections of the War in Ukraine in Visegrad Countries. The project is co-financed by the governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.
SPECIÁLNÍ ČÍSLO/SPECIAL EDITION