Considering the Sub-Regional Cooperation in East-Central Europe – Some Conclusions on Integrating and Disintegrating Tendencies in the Sub-Regional Dialogue

Considering the Sub-Regional Cooperation in East-Central Europe – Some Conclusions on Integrating and Disintegrating Tendencies in the Sub-Regional Dialogue

This article discusses the problems of the sub-regional cooperation in East-Central Europe. It formulates the general conclusions and examines the specific case of the Visegrad Group as the most advanced example of this cooperation. The article identifies the integrating and disintegrating tendencies that have so far accompanied the sub-regional dialogue in East-Central Europe. Yet it claims that the disintegrating impulses prevail over the integrating impulses. EastCentral Europe remains diversified and it has not developed a single platform of the sub-regional dialogue. The common experience of the communist period gives way to the growing difference of the sub-regional interests and the ability of the East-Central European members to coordinate their positions in the European Union is limited. The Visegrad Group is no exception in this regard despite its rich agenda of social and cultural contacts. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict confirms a deep divergence of interests among the Visegrad states that seems more important for the future of the Visegrad cooperation than the recent attempts to mark the Visegrad unity in the European refugee crisis. Finally, the Ukrainian crisis and the strengthening of the NATO’s “Eastern flank” may contribute to some new ideas of the sub-regional cooperation in East-Central Europe, to include the Polish-Baltic rapprochement or the closer dialogue between Poland and Romania.
Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v10i1.251
 

Wieclawski, Jacek

Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies; 2016: RERA V10:1 Fall 2016 (backfile abstracts)

2562-8429

10.22215/cjers.v10i1

Centre for European Studies, Carleton University

2016-09-19

info:eu-repo/semantics/article

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Peer-reviewed Article