- India
- Sep 22
Jaishankar meets foreign ministers of Visegrad Group (V4)
• Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar participated in the first V4+India Foreign Ministers’ Meeting held on the margins of the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 21.
• The Visegrad Group (V4) is a cultural and political alliance of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia that aims at advancing co-operation in military, economic, cultural and energy affairs.
• The meeting was held under the Slovak presidency.
• The V4+India format offers an additional platform for dialogue and cooperation, building upon India’s longstanding and substantive relations with V4 countries.
• The ministers exchanged views on ways to strengthen engagement between India and the Visegrad Group.
• They acknowledged the strong bilateral relations that exist between India and each of the V4 countries, and noted the potential for the V4+India format to complement and add further momentum to these ties.
What is Visegrad Group?
• The Visegrad Group was created in 1991 when Polish, Czechoslovakian and Hungarian leaders met in the Hungarian town of Visegrad to promote cooperation between the three States following the Warsaw Pact.
• In 1993, Slovakia separated from the Czech Republic and the Group became the “V4”.
• The initial objectives were to promote these States as candidates for membership of NATO and the European Union. They were fulfilled in 1999 and 2004, respectively.
• Since then, the V4 has continued essentially as an instrument for consultation, cooperation and definition of the countries’ shared positions ahead of key European events.
• The V4 is an informal intergovernmental forum and makes its decisions by consensus.
• It does not have any permanent structures. The group’s work is centred around a presidency which rotates on an annual basis and regular meetings at various levels
• Among the V4 countries, cooperation takes place within the framework of their European Union and NATO membership.
• On July 1, 2026, Slovakia took over the presidency of V4.