Experts from four countries met today in Bratislava to agree on the final version of the common recommendations concerning transatlantic security for the governments of the Visegrad Group. The document was elaborated by an expert group and many external associates in the frame of the Visegrad Security Cooperation Initiative (VSCI) project.
The aim of the project is to identify common security and defence interests of the V4 countries and to analyze possible instruments of their joint implementation. The work of two expert groups (transatlantic security, energy security) lasting several months has resulted in two policy papers containing recommendations, one of which has been signed today.
The authors of this first document Jaroslav Naď, István Gyarmati, Libor Frank and Tomasz Szatkowski, together with the organizers, agreed on the need of developing common foreign policy strategies in the area of security. According to Tomasz Szatkowski “the recent political changes in Slovakia and Hungary make the case for deeper V4 security cooperation even more relevant”. As an example he refers to the “encouraging” model of Nordic countries. Moreover, he continues with the idea that “there is actually at present even greater national security approach affinity within the V4 than within the Nordic countries.”
The publication of the second document, which is related to the cooperation in the area of energy security, is expected in the following weeks. The project, organized by the Slovak Atlantic Commission in cooperation with its partners from Czech Republic (Jagello 2000), Hungary (International Centre for Democratic Transition) and Poland (Euro-Atlantic Association), was funded by the means of the intergovernmental International Visegrad Fund.
> Document for download (PDF, 626KB)
