Initially, the three member states cooperated rather efficiently in the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Cooperation regarding the economic relations with each other and regarding negotiations with the EU developed to a much lesser extent. Indeed, the relationship with the EU was characterised by competition rather than cooperation. Besides the desire of the Czech and Slovak political leaderships to control the privatisation process in their respective territories, the Czech aspiration to move more rapidly towards the West without the poorer Slovak areas was one of the factors behind the splitting up of Czechoslovakia. The Czech governments led by the national-liberal Občanská demokratická strana (ODS) saw the country as the most advanced in the region and made it abundantly clear that the Czech Republic would negotiate its relationship with the EU structures on its own and without liaising with the neighbors. [...]
In positioning themselves towards the unfolding crisis of the EU integration model and the recomposing of the European power relations, the Visegrád states have shown significant differences. Slovakia with its particularly close links to the German export production sector is the only Visegrád country that joined the euro zone. The (left-)nationalist Smer government took a particularly hard line in the euro zone negotiations with Greece. By showing unflappable loyalty with the German position, it demonstrated its desire to remain within this institutional core of the EU. In the issue of the refugees, the Slovak government, however, took an extremely restrictive stance and offensively combatted any mechanism that would redistribute refugees among EU states. Thus, it challenged both the German position as the then majority inside the EU. [...]
Their joint extremely restrictive position on refugees is rather an exception. And it is informed by the desire to keep off a group of migrants that are forced out of their countries by war which might compete with their “own” labour migrants in the core economies.
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