Institute for Public Affairs (IVO) was a part of an international team investigating the voting and attitudes of MEPs in four V4 countries plus Austria, Bulgaria and Romania. The leader of the research group was Political Capital from Hungary. 

Contributor for the national chapters about Slovakia is Grigorij Mesežnikov, president of the Institute For Public Affairs (IVO).

Research paper MEPs from Central Europe: A Bulwark against Authoritarianism summarizes the findings of a four-year research project on the foreign policy-related votes of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from Central and Southeastern European countries in the 9th European Parliamentary term (2019-2024). The team analyzed 152 votes cast by MEPs from Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Romania and Bulgaria between 2019 and 2023 to determine the potential openness of these MEPs to authoritarian influence, particularly from Russia and China.

Authors had categorized the votes into three groups: Counter-authoritarian, Kremlin-critical, and China-critical. Based on the individual votes, we have created the corresponding indices, namely the Counter-Authoritarian Index (CAI), the Kremlin-Critical Index (KCI), and the China-Critical Index (CCI). All indices have a value on a scale of 0-100, with a higher number representing a more critical voting pattern towards the Kremlin, China or all other authoritarian regimes.

Download: MEPs from Central Europe: A Bulwark against Authoritarianism [pdf]