The main objective of the two-year program was to share the political and sectoral experiences of the Visegrad Group in order to support deepening regional cooperation in and among the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership countries emphasizing the role of inter-regional cooperation in promoting stability and European integration. The goals and applied methodology was to convene the main actors and stakeholders who play key role in inter-regional (or with other word transnational) cooperation such as governments, civil society organizations, think-tanks and businesses from these three European regions and create a forum discussing the main challenges, aspects and elements of inter-regional cooperation, sharing experiences and lesson learnt, and best practices as well innovations in this field.

What follows is a unique and above all timely attempt to take a comprehensive look at the Visegrad experience in order to analyze and summarize its positive examples and potential messages as well as some lessons learned that can then be projected toward two neighbouring regions of strategic importance not only for the Visegrad Group, but also for the European Union as a whole: namely the Western Balkans and the Eastern Neighbourhood. While bearing in mind the different socio-economic contexts and bases of development in these groups of countries, the common denominator and larger framework that nevertheless connects them – beyond the many historic links and geographic proximity – is the gravitational pull of European integration. Therefore, while the Visegrad experience is in the strict sense the theme and subject of the study, it is naturally interwoven with the EU as a point of reference.

We hereby would like to thank the donor of the project, the Norwegian-EEA Financial Mechanism for making this publication possible.