SFPA - Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs

The Briefing Note requested by the European Parliament AFET Committee as one of a series of country-specific briefings concerning candidate and potential candidate countries was carried out by the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association following the contract Lot 1 EU Enlargement, European Neighbourhood Policy signed by the Consortium of the European NGOs led and represented by the Paris-based NGO IRIS with the European Parliament. The analysis was of the program was provided also thank to the long-term cooperation with our partner in Serbia, European Movement in Serbia and its research fewllow Marko Nikolić.

The Briefing Note requested by the European Parliament AFET Committee as one of a series of country-specific briefings concerning candidate and potential candidate countries was carried out by the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association following the contract Lot 1 EU Enlargement, European Neighbourhood Policy signed by the Consortium of the European NGOs led and represented by the Paris-based NGO IRIS with the European Parliament. The analysis was of the program was provided also thank to the long-term cooperation with our partner in Bosnia and Herzegovina, European Research Center in Sarajevo and its head Tija Memišević.

The accession of Hungary and Slovakia to the European Union provided them with
an opportunity to shape the policies of the EU, including foreign and enlargement ones.
Until now, neither of the countries exploited all chances they had, since a big portion of
their diplomatic activities aimed at the explanation of problems in their bilateral rela-
tions. Instead of presenting new initiatives that might be of added value for the EU, both
countries got the reputation of more hostile EU members.

Citizens of Visegrad states - the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary - have many common experiences related to the history of the region. One of these experiences is the limited freedom of travel to the countries of Western Europe before 1989. Czech, Poles, Slovaks and Hungarians know well what it means to struggle with numerous formalities and lengthy procedures in order to travel to a selected destination.