On the 21st of November, the Center for EU Enlargement Studies (CENS), in cooperation with the International Visegrad Fund (IVF) and the bi-annual magazine, Visegrad Insight, organized a lecture entitled “Enhancing the Eastern Dimension - Synergies between the External Instruments of the International Visegrad Fund and the Eastern Partnership”. The goal of the event was to raise awareness about the recently established grant programs of the International Visegrad Fund towards the Eastern Partnership region and to enhance the visibility of the newly launched Visegrad Insight magazine.

The event was opened by Professor Péter Balázs, Director of CENS, who in his introduction emphasized CENS’ academic interest in the Visegrad region. IVF was represented by Ms. Karla Wursterová, Executive Director, and her colleague Mr. Ferenc Jári, Eastern Partnership Coordinator of the Fund. Ms. Wursterová made a short introduction to the history of the Visegrad Group, a unique regional cooperation, which was founded in 1991 in order to help the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland to move towards their mutual goal, the Euro-Atlantic integration. The sole organization of the Visegrad Group, the International Visegrad Fund, was established in 2000 with the aim of supporting bottom-up cooperation on the level of civil society. To achieve its goal, the Fund runs several grant schemes and mobility programs, which Ms. Wursterová introduced in detail. Since 2004, the Fund is also active in two external dimensions: the Western Balkans and the region of the Eastern Partnership.

Mr. Jári introduced the newly launched ‘Visegrad 4 Eastern Partnership’ program, which was created in 2012 in order to share V4 know-how and experience, and to develop cooperation with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The program is compatible with other existing grant schemes in its principle: it seeks to support civil society. The program encompasses multiple elements: flagship projects, standard grants, the Visegrad University Studies Grant and Visegrad Scholarships for EaP.

Mr. Wojciech Przybylski, Editor-in-Chief of the Visegrad Insight magazine spoke about the transformative power of the Visegrad cooperation, which he consideres important not only for those Eastern partner countries who now benefit from the support provided by the IVF, but also for the Visegrad countries themselves. In his view, the cooperation is not only about practical matters, but is also a question of memory and dignity. Question of memory in the sense that the Visegrad cooperation was also a tool to mentally escape from the bad memories and experiences the ‘East’ embodied. Now the task is to overcome this perception about the ‘East’, and in our cooperation with the EaP countries, to reform and reframe our ideas about each other. Regional cooperation should be built between partners. At the same time, Visegrad is a question of dignity, which was re-found through characters like Vaclav Havel, John Paul II or József Antal. Thus, relations of the Visegrad countries with their Eastern neighbours must be based on dignity. In this regard one must be aware of the negative connotation the word ‘East’ and ‘Eastern’ might hold when it is used as a pair to ‘West’ or ‘Western’. Instead, Mr. Przybylski suggests, one might extend ‘Central Europe’ as this term is less loaded.

To conclude the lectures, Prof. Balázs reiterated his deep belief in the Visegrad cooperation, which has survived already more than 20 years, despite contrary expectations and even after having reached its original goals. Now the countries need to think about how to move forward and how to use their new position in the EU to achieve new objectives.

For further information about the grants and mobility programs of the International Visegrad Fund, please, consult Ms. Wursterová’s presentation (attached) or IVF’s own homepage at www.visegradfund.org

The online version of the bi-annual magazine, Visegrad Insight is available at www.visegradinsight.eu