The Austerlitz format, or Slavkov format, also "North-Trilateral" or "Slavkov trilateral", is a loose cooperation between

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

and

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

Name

The name derives from the South Moravian town of

Slavkov u Brna Slavkov u Brna (; historically known in German as Austerlitz) is a town in Vyškov District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 7,000 inhabitants. The town gave its name to the Battle of Austerlitz which took place seve ...

, in the German language historically called Austerlitz, which is known as the site of the

Battle of the Three Emperors The Battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805/11 Frimaire An XIV FRC), also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important and decisive engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near the town of Austerlitz in ...

of 1805.

Background

On the 15 February 1991 the

Visegrád Group The Visegrád Group (also known as the Visegrád Four, the V4, or the European Quartet) is a cultural and political alliance of four Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The alliance aims to advance co-o ...

was formed as a cultural and political cooperation between the central European countries of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, and there was a push to expand this group to include Slovenia and Austria. On 3 April 2014, the Czech President

Miloš Zeman Miloš Zeman (; born 28 September 1944) is a Czech politician serving as the third and current President of the Czech Republic since 2013. He previously served as the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic from 1998 to 2002. As leader of the Czec ...

announced at a press conference in

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...

that Slovenia and Austria will also participate in the meetings of an enlarged Visegrád group in the future. However, the next day, Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs by his spokesman,

Gábor Kaleta Gábor Kaleta (born 1975) is a Hungarian diplomat who served as his country's ambassador to Peru from 2017 to 2019. In July 2020, he was given a suspended prison sentence for possessing 19,000 photographs of child pornography he had downloaded f ...

, stated that an expansion of the Visegrád Group is not planned, thus rejecting Zeman's offer to Slovenia and Austria. Apart from Hungary's reluctance to include Slovenia and Austria in the Visegrád Group, the different points of view regarding the Russian sanctions in the wake of the

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatist forces in Donbas, Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since Feb ...

that had begun in 2014 on one hand and the three states of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria on the other proved to be an obstacle for an expansion of the Visegrád group. It was therefore necessary to find a different framework for enhanced cooperation. On January 29, 2015, the Prime Minister of Czech Republic

Bohuslav Sobotka Bohuslav Sobotka (; born 23 October 1971) is a Czech politician and lawyer who served as the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic from January 2014 to December 2017 and Leader of the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) from 2010 until his resig ...

and Slovakia

Robert Fico Robert Fico (; born 15 September 1964) is a Slovak politician who served as the prime minister of Slovakia from 2006 to 2010 and from 2012 to 2018 (when he resigned). He has been the first leader of the Direction – Social Democracy (SMER-SD) p ...

and the Austrian Chancellor

Werner Faymann Werner Faymann (; born 4 May 1960) is an Austrian former politician who was Chancellor of Austria and chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) from 2008 to 2016. On 9 May 2016, he resigned from both positions amid widening critic ...

came together in

, Austerlitz near Brno. The 'Austerlitz Declaration' was signed and the Austerlitz framework for mutual co-operation was launched. Petr Drulák, the deputy minister of the Czech Republic, emphasized that the Austerlitz framework was not a competitor, but a complement to the Visegrád group.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Slavkov Declaration Agreements