Twenty years after enlargement: review of the achievements and the future role of V4 cooperation

This paper seeks to critically evaluate the evolution, dynamics and future prospects of cooperationa mong the Visegrád Group (V4) – Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia – within the broader context of European integration and spatial aspects of development. While the 20th anniversary of the 2004 EU enlargement provides the motivation for the study, the central goal is to evaluate how V4 cooperation has contributed to, responded to and was shaped by major territorial, political, and socio-economic transformations over the past two decades. Employing a mixed-method approach, this research integrates statistical data from Eurostat and the output from existing relevant research on V4 countries to gauge the economic development trajectory and the impacts on these countries, as well as semi-structured interviews with senior academics, including planners, economists, and public administration experts. Our mixed-method methodology combines quantitative assessments of economic development indicators with qualitative insights from interviews to provide a comprehensive understanding of the V4 countries’ development post-EU accession. The key themes include economic development including statistical trends in economic indicators, focusing on GDP growth and convergence with the EU average over the past two decades; socio-economic convergence, focusing on the success of socio-economic convergence at the community level while acknowledging the rise in territorial inequalities at sub-regional and local levels; the impact of structural funds on local government units, evaluating their role in developing technical and social infrastructure and addressing territorial disparities; functional linkages, particularly how the enlargement influenced functional linkages within the EU, especially the interaction between the V4 countries and the ‘old’ Member States; and challenges and disparities focusing on uneven effects of various challenges, including economic crises, migratory patterns, geopolitical conflicts, and external shocks, on the spatial distribution of winners and losers.