V4 Reloaded: Central Europe Unites to Defend Cohesion and Agricultural Funding
The next big debate on the future of the European Union has already begun—not over enlargement, migration or defence, but over the EU's next long-term budget.
V4
A collection of 21 posts
Slovak referendum on Fico's lifetime pension fails amid record-low turnout
A failed Slovak referendum on Prime Minister Robert Fico's lifetime pension has exposed a pattern playing out well beyond Slovakia: across Europe, benefits for former heads of state are becoming political ammunition precisely where societies and elites are most deeply divided.
AI as the New Test of Central European Convergence - Poland and Hungary Face the Same Challenge
Two Central and Eastern European countries with different growth structures and economic performances are both looking to artificial intelligence as a driver of faster development.
Budapest Regional Summit: The V4 Is Coming Back to Life
Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar aims to breathe new life into the Visegrád Four format. To achieve this, the countries will have to overcome political differences – particularly regarding their approach toward Russia.
Slovakia’s Search for Political Balance: Economic Pressures, Institutional Debates and the Stakes of the Next Election
Slovakia has once again become a focus of political attention in Central Europe.
The price of an industrial economy
Czechia's economy grew 2.6% in 2025, unemployment sits near record lows, and the current account is in surplus. It is not an economy in difficulty.
Lessons from Kraków’s mayoral recall: a regional signal for Central European urban politics
The recent political upheaval in Kraków, where Mayor Aleksander Miszalski was removed in a recall referendum, is more than a local Polish story. It reflects a broader Central European pattern where urban governance, national polarization, and EU-level political identities increasingly intersect.
Friendship Restored (?): Russian Oil Flows Resume
Recent developments around the Druzhba (Friendship) oil pipeline have highlighted just how vulnerable and politically entangled Central Europe’s energy supply remains.
Domino effect: Fico has little reason to welcome Orbán’s defeat
The defeat of Hungary’s ruling party could trigger a domino effect across the region. Slovak media, in this context, point to a weakening of Robert Fico’s position.
Polish press: The Kremlin is looking for Orbán’s successor
Moscow must also rethink its regional position after Fidesz’s defeat. Russia has lost its most stable ally in the region, while still needing partner(s) within the EU.
Oil price shocks: how the energy crisis is dividing Central Europe
As Hormuz closes and Druzhba stays shut, the four Visegrád countries face the same vulnerability from opposite directions.
Hungary's political earthquake: the end of the Orbán era and the weight of what comes next
On 12 April 2026, Hungarian voters ended sixteen years of Viktor Orbán's rule in a landslide, handing Péter Magyar's Tisza party a two-thirds supermajority on the highest turnout since the fall of communism.
Prague and Bratislava patch things up
The Czech-Slovak bilateral reset, sealed at Nóva Horka on March 31, has reopened a diplomatic channel that was shut over Ukraine.
The Polish press is once again writing about “Polexit”
The question of leaving the European Union regularly resurfaces in Polish public life whenever political or rule-of-law disputes between Warsaw and Brussels intensify.
Czech public media reform raises questions over independence
The resignation of veteran broadcaster Václav Moravec from Czech Television in March brought to a head a long-simmering confrontation between the country's public media and the new coalition government of Andrej Babiš, which plans to abolish the licence fees that fund them.