Supported by: International Visegrad Fund
Project span: October 2023 – December 2024
Project team: Oľga Gyárfášová, Grigorij Mesežnikov, Ján Bartoš
Cooperating institutions (partners):
Czech Republic: FOCUS - Centrum pro sociální a marketingovou analýzu
Hungary: Publicus Institute
Poland: Opinia24
Objective:
The aim of the project is to research and analyze the attitudes of citizens of the V4 countries to the issues of Visegrad cooperation and the functioning of the V4 itself.
The issue of Visegrad belongingness has a broader social dimension, not only on the level of political elites but also that of the general public.
It certainly makes sense to examine the issue of Visegrad identity in different contexts, particularly in the context of European identity. The European identity shared by people inhabiting the “old continent” is determined especially by cultural and value factors. The project of pan-European integration with all its economic, political and security dimensions would not be thinkable without this kind of systemic identity, without “Europeanism”, without the joint European cultural foundation, without universal human values whose recognition emerged and developed on the European soil.
The histories of Central European nations have been mutually intertwined and effectively shared over certain historical periods; although these periods are not nowadays perceived identically by inhabitants of individual countries. On the other hand, the three decades of the Visegrad group’s existence that has produced multidimensional cross-border ties, actual measures on the level of practical policies and various tangible results of mutual cooperation must inevitably have affected individual people’s perception of this format of regional cooperation, their views regarding its meaningfulness and viability, and the role individual member states have played in developing this concept.
The V4 is based primarily on cooperation in the domain of politics. It is a format of interstate cooperation that is implemented in several areas. But how is it perceived by inhabitants of individual countries? Do they know at all what it entails? How would they describe the Visegrad Four’s common interests? How do they perceive each other? What is the level of their mutual trust? What is the intensity of their mutual interactions? What problems within the Visegrad group itself and in its broader environs including the EU can be identified by inhabitants of individual V4 member states?
All these questions that represent an important dimension of internal cohesion on the level of V4 member states’ populations should be answered by the research project entitled “Global challenges and Visegrad cooperation as seen by the Visegrad public” that has been supported by the International Visegrad Fund.
The current project is a follow-up to similar public opinion polls conducted in the frameworks of IVO’s projects in V4 countries in 2001, 2003, 2011, 2015 and 2021.
The project is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.
