On 17 October 2011, the Center for EU Enlargement Studies (CENS) in cooperation with the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Hungary and Department of International Relations and European Studies (IRES) at CEU organized a lecture of H.E. Peter Weiss, Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to Hungary.

The lecture was part of the Ambassadorial lecture series taking place monthly at CEU. The topic of the lecture was Visegrad Group cooperation and the results of the Slovak V4 Presidency that took place between July 2010 and June 2011. In his lecture, H.E. Weiss started with the history of V4 cooperation – the foundations of the Visegrad Group have been laid down on 15 February 1991 at the Visegrad castle with the aim to enhance the Euro-Atlantic integration of the four countries. He highlighted that the political and moral support of Slovakia from its neighbours played an important role in Slovakia’s integration efforts and therefore it has to be remembered. The motto of the Slovak V4 Presidency was “Stronger Together” and it had four priorities: continuity, cohesion, solidarity and awareness. H.E. Weiss pointed out that the Visegrad Group has no administrative institutions except the International Visegrad Fund which clearly shows that the cooperation is based on the political will of the four countries. Last but not least, he talked about the importance of the V4+ format of cooperation. In conclusion, he expressed his hopes that the V4 cooperation will remain a well established brand and will continue to fulfill its mission also in the future.