The setbacks of the Visegrad Group on the level of end-game negotiation as well as its absence in EU macro-regional strategy projects show that the mechanism of the “hard power”, such as economic potential or number of votes in the EU institutions are not sufficient to enforce the interests of the V4 or its member states on the European level. On the other hand the Visegrad Group and the V4+ format is an attractive and respected negotiation platform both within the EU as well as between the V4 and the “third states”.
Therefore the main hypothesis of the presented publication is that one of the main sources of attractiveness and tools of the influence of the Visegrad Group on the decision making process in the EU, on the Central European EU members, existing or potential EU-candidates and the “third states” is the “soft power” of the Group, i.e. its ability to achieve preferable outcomes in world politics because other states want to follow it or have agreed to a situation that produces such effects” (Nye, 1990, 166). Subsequently the research question is what the content of the Visegrad Group soft power could be and if V4 has remained the “trade mark” of Central European states, the content of which could be a trade mark now in the post-accession period?
