The process of the European integration is firmly associated with various streams of subregional integration embodied in the projects as the Nordic cooperation, Benelux or Visegrad (V4) cooperation. The existing extensive literature covers various that the subregional integration has played in the EU as impact, mutual relations or contribution. On the other hand, little is known about the role of such partnership in the current EU that has been recently facing multiple crisis and challenges. This panel analyses such lacuna using various aspects of the V4 as a suitable example – the V4 has been heavily hit by some crisis (namely war at Ukraine), has played very active role in some crises related events (e. g. migration crises) and has experienced remarkable internal dynamics (particularly due to changing political situation in the participating countries).

The aim of this paper is to investigate how various EU crises contributed to the functioning of the V4 group as a political institution within and beyond the EU context. We focus on three events – the migration crisis of 2015/2016, the COVID-19 crisis of 2020/2021, and the war in Ukraine of 2022. All these events can be considered as potential critical junctures, each addressing different salient policy sectors (internal security, public health, foreign policy), most likely having different impacts on the V4 performance. More specifically, our goal is to determine to what extent the perception and functioning of V4 cooperation changed – as an institution of foreign and EU policy cooperation – during three subsequent crises. The paper will focus on a comparative look at the perception of the role of the V4 in Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia – with the objective of evaluating to what extent V4 is 'fit for purpose' in times of turbulent challenges affecting various policies and political problems.

The EU's decision to start the negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova opened new analytical problems related to the role of EU's instruments, funding schemes and production of expertise about the enlargement process and the candidates themselves. This paper will investigate V4's role in establishing new instruments and funding schemes for candidates, particularly the role of Poland in this process. The primary focus will be on the degree to which they differ from ENP and 2004/7/13 enlargement instruments and funding schemes. In this light, we will see the reporting practices on the negotiation progress (compared to ENP and 2004/7/13 Enlargement). This will be examined in the context of V4's countries' expertise production in this process. Are V4 countries and their EU-based professionals playing the role of candidates' advocates' in the negotiations? To what degree do they use their past enlargement experience in the current negotiations to amend and sustain the instruments and funding schemes? Or do they play the role of 'gatekeepers'? The research will be based on document analysis, in-depth interviews (IDIs) with EU and V4 professionals and desk research.

Among subregional cooperations within the European Union, V4 has been one of the most influential ones in the last decade. However, while some years ago we claimed that V4 played an important role a subregional group to an extent we could consider them as team players (introducing a theory of 3-level game on the basis of their example), after the Russian attack to the Ukraine the V4 seems to have fallen apart. The Russian aggression also triggered another important development in the EU - Eastern enlargement, while being halted for the last years, came into the centre of attention. The quick official candidate status granted to the Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia put the future of the Western Balkans in the spotlight, too. In paralel, the enlargement policy of the EU has become increasingly stringent, the Commission introduced a new methodology for the process. The new approach places a primary emphasis on the 'fundamentals,' encompassing the rule of law, the functioning of democratic institutions, public administration, and the candidates' economies. Enlargement negotiations start and also end with a focus on these fundamentals, thus negotiating other policy fields is not possible without completing these requirements.

Did the pre- and post-accession experience of the 2004 and 2007 Eastern enlargement, or the current the rule of law disputes of the Union with some Central and Eastern European member states put the rule of law criteria at the top of the list of priorities for accession criteria for newcomers? How can the EU maintain the credibility of enlargement and deliver on the promise of accession in the Western Balkans when almost all the candidate states have seen the rule of law enlargement criteria slow down, if not halt, the negotiation process? There is also the question whether Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, where the so-called 'fundamentals' are also not being met, can the accession process really move forward? What are the positions of the V4 countries, in the immediate neighbourhood of which the candidate countries are located, on this policy?

In our paper, building on the theories of enlargement Europeanisation and applying the document analysis, we examine how the V4 - as a region closest to candidate countries - react to this challenges and whether their cooperation revives in this context or stays frozen.