Recent political developments in Central Europe have revived the debate about the future of regional cooperation and the Visegrád Group. Changes in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, together with Austria’s growing interest in closer cooperation with its neighbours, could create new opportunities for dialogue and coordination around shared priorities. 

The world economy is being reordered. The certainties of the post-Cold War era, open trade, dollar centrality, predictable multilateral coordination, are giving way to a landscape shaped by rivalry between the United States and China, the weaponization of interdependence, and a scramble to secure supply chains, technologies and critical resources. What once looked like a stable architecture now appears fragile, contested, and in places actively being dismantled.