Exploring Opportunieties and Obstacles in Visegrad Countries’ Cooperation with Brazil, India, China and South Africa
Patryk Kugiel, Editor
Polish Institute of International Affairs, Warsaw 2016 pp. 85
This report is a modest attempt to describe, compare and understand the Visegrad
countries’ relations with Brazil, India, China and South Africa in order to suggest possible avenues for cooperation at the V4 level. It does not include Russia, which is often associated with the BICS countries in the better known group called BRICS. Unlike the four countries from the global south, Russia, although geographically closer, is not a new
emerging power. For historical, geographical and geopolitical reasons, the V4
countries’ relations with Russia have their own specific dynamic and one not comparable to any of the other BRICS countries.
This analysis covers the V4 states’ bilateral relations with the BICS countries in three
dimensions: political, economic and people-to-people contact. The structure of the report is designed to allow for easy comparison of an individual V4 member’s policies with a
given partner country. After an introductory chapter that characterise the V4
and BICS countries, the parts following present cooperation with Brazil (Chapter 2), India (Chapter 3), China (Chapter 4) and South Africa (Chapter 5). Chapter 6
summarises the main findings about Visegrad cooperation in terms of strengths and flaws in three thematic areas. The final part, Conclusions, assembles a list of individual best practices and recommendations for better use of the V4
format. This report is the result of the cooperation of experts from all of the Visegrad countries within a research
