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PL + CZ + HU + SK = Visegrad Group (V4)
•Population: 64 million (~ UK)
•Area: 533 thousands sq. km (~ France)
•GDP (PPP): 1.6 trillion USD (~ Spain)
•GDP per capita: 25 thousands USD (~ Portugal or Greece)
•Membership in international organizations: UN, IMF, WB, WTO, OECD, EU, Council of Europe, OSCE,
NATO, V4
•Voting in the Council of the EU
–4 countries out of 16/28
–13 % of the EU population (need to be 65 %)
•Seats in European Parliament: 107 (more than Germany)

Political freedom
•Before 1989:
–Partly Free (Poland and Hungary in 1980s)
–Not Free (Czechoslovakia)
•After 1990
–Free
–(Slovakia Partly Free in 1994-1998)
•Today
–Free 1-1
–(Hungary 2-1)
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What is Central Europe?
•Between West and East, North and South
•1948 – 1989: “Culturally part of the West, politically part of the East”  (Milan Kundera)
•The borderland of the Western Christian civilization
•Small countries, never played a significant role outside of the region, always at the receiving
end of conflicts, always behind the West, yet ahead of the East.
•Internally very heterogeneous – major dividing lines in Europe
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•A cultural and historical concept
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Why has Central Europe always lagged behind?
•Loss of national sovereignty at the end of Middle Age
•Parts of autocratic empires – Habsburg Austrian Empire, Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Prussian
Empire
•Military conflicts – … Tatars, Mongols, Ottomans, Thirty years war, Napoleon wars, WW I and WW II,
possibly WW III, Balkan wars
•Limited/belated reach of colonialism, reformation, enlightenment, liberalization and industrialism
•Part of the Soviet Eastern Europe in 1948-1989

Current issues in the region
•Economy
–Growth slowed down after 2008
–Investments from the Western Europe and the US were withdrawn
•Politics
–Rise of populism
–Corruption
•Security
–Ukraine crisis and relations with Russia
–Energy security
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