Visegrad Group Co-operation and Russia

Much thought has been given of late to how national preferences impact upon European Union-level policy-making towards Russia and it is widely accepted that discrepancies in Member State attitudes can undermine consistent and effective multilateral policies. So far there has been no attempt to ascertain whether subregional groupings that exist inside the EU (which represent a potential in-between layer of policy-making between the bilateral and multilateral) are inclined or able to attempt to co-ordinate their positions on Russia. This article focuses on the Visegrad Group (VG), which would appear to be an obvious candidate, but actually has virtually no co-operation agenda vis-a-vis Russia (the other main groupings are the Benelux Economic Union, the Nordic Council and the Weimar Triangle). The article argues that it is difficult to accommodate Russia in the current VG foreign policy framework due to the focus on low politics and integration assistance. It also contends that limited capacity and intra-VG divergence on key aspects of relations with Russia mean that the VG is unlikely to expand its agenda so as to attempt more co-operation on Russia in the future.