Views from Visegrad

Topics on the agenda in Bratislava

Energy security

Poland’s foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, declared himself “quite optimistic” about central Europe’s energy security. It was a sentiment shared by others, buttressed by a conviction – voiced by Sikorski – that the EU had realised, because of Russia’s past decisions to cut gas supplies, that the region’s concern about energy security “was for real”. 

A range of advances were cited in debate, including liberalisation of the EU’s energy market, the development of liquefied natural-gas terminals, the creation of inter-connectors between pipeline systems, and greater efficiency.

Alan Riley of City University, London, praised the European Commission’s anti-trust efforts. “Having broken the back of opposition in western Europe, the guns of the Commission turned eastward,” towards Russia’s Gazprom and other regional energy giants.

Looking ahead, Riley flagged up the potential effects of shale-gas discoveries and a pending legal ruling on the linking of oil and gas prices. “Any ruling would be used globally by the Chinese and Japanese,” he suggested.

There was also a sense that Russia has played its hand badly. It partially realises that, “which is why some of us are getting discounts”, Sikorski said. Russia, though, has not yet adjusted other policies. There was bewilderment about the over-capacity that would result from Russia’s pipeline-building plans, while Riley suggested Russia is neglecting domestic investment. Perhaps one day Russia’s neglect of domestic energy investment could lead to Poland exporting shale gas to Russia, he said.

Visegrád’s defence

“There was a very symbolic event last week,” said Estonia’s president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves: “The last US tank left.” The fact that the US is less interested in Europe, he said, should make “us slap our heads and ask what we are going to do”. His prescription was to “take security seriously and take our own rules seriously”, referring to the EU.

The Visegrád Four, of which Estonia is not a member, sought to present a unified position on security, issuing a joint declaration setting out their guidelines for the EU’s current review of security heading into a summit of EU leaders on the topic in December.

But the declaration came against the backdrop of a 20% cut spending in three of the countries since the crisis (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia), with Poland being the exception. “We’re not proud of that,” said Miroslav Lajcák, Slovakia’s foreign minister, adding that Bratislava, Budapest and Prague have “made a commitment to increase [their] budgets as soon as the overall budget allows”.

Others looked at the preparations for a Visegrád battle-group in 2016, seen as a test case for deeper co-operation. But the prospects of pooling and sharing of resources and specialisation seemed remote. Two other current features seemed more likely to shape the region’s security planning in the medium term: Poland’s rapid increase in defence spending, and the impact of defence cuts.

Speaking of NATO as a whole, Slovakia’s NATO ambassador, Tomáš Valášek, said that cutting in an unco-ordinated way is “the worst thing that we have done in recent years”.

Visegrád co-operation

How well can the four countries of the Visegrád Four function as a bloc when the combined population of three of them – Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – amounts to less than 70% of Poland’s population? Such questions were put to one side during the conference, with the attention instead being paid to the value of working more closely together.

Miroslav Lajcák, Slovakia’s foreign minister, said the group was “more productive now”, a trend that his Polish counterpart, Radek Sikorski, suggested would be enhanced by a new approach – the group’s rotating presidency is now functioning in the same way as the EU’s rotating presidency, with meetings between ministers for many portfolios, not just premiers and prime ministers.

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Similar views on issues from trade to security, the advantages of working as a bloc in the EU, energy co-operation, the bloc’s co-ordinated outreach to neighbours in the western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership: these were all areas of ‘added value’ that were mentioned. But the bloc’s value was also relative. “In a depressed market, we are rising stocks,” Sikorski suggested, contrasting the sluggishness of the EU with the economic dynamism of Poland and Slovakia (he conveniently passed over the lacklustre figures of the Czech Republic and Hungary). Karel Schwarzenberg, the Czech foreign minister, also found value by comparing and contrasting the bloc: “Modesty” is a “great strength” of the Visegrád group, he said.

Ukraine’s problems

Should Ukraine be allowed to sign an association agreement with the European Union this year? This was not a central topic of debate at the conference, but the relatively few Ukrainians present would not have returned to Kiev with great confidence.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the keynote speaker, made clear his personal conviction that Turkey is substantially more democratic than Ukraine. He also warned that the EU should not prejudge Ukraine’s ultimate membership “because if that is forfeited, Europe will lose its basic defining characteristic, a sense of what good governance in a morally conscious society ought to be. I don’t think that we can ignore the fact that in Ukraine actions have been taken that prejudge the outcome of future elections by putting people in prison,” he said, referring to the jailing of four former ministers.

The think-tank panellists at a side-event, including Olga Shumylo-Tapiola of Carnegie Europe, and Balázs Jarábik of the Central European Policy Institute, also made clear their doubts about Ukraine’s progress. Should the EU, asked Shumylo-Tapiola, sign the association agreement because it thinks Ukraine matters? “Ukraine matters with its negative agenda, with the negative impact it may have on the EU,” she said. With too much haste, the EU would lose leverage, send the wrong sign to other eastern neighbours wanting EU deals, and suggest to Russia that the EU is engaged in a battle for spheres of influence.