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

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

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, 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 west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

and

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

Name

The name derives from the South Moravian town of

Slavkov u Brna Slavkov u Brna (; ) is a town in Vyškov District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 7,300 inhabitants. The town gave its name to the Battle of Austerlitz, which took place several kilometres west of the town. The his ...

, in the German language historically called Austerlitz, which is known as the site of the Battle of the Three Emperors of 1805.

Background

On the 15 February 1991 the

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

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 who served as the third president of the Czech Republic from 2013 to 2023. He also previously served as the prime minister of the Czech Republic from 1998 to 2002. As leader of the Cze ...

announced at a press conference in

Ljubljana {{Infobox settlement , name = Ljubljana , official_name = , settlement_type = Capital city , image_skyline = {{multiple image , border = infobox , perrow = 1/2/2/1 , total_widt ...

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, 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 began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia Russian occupation of Crimea, occupied and Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, annexed Crimea from Ukraine. It then ...

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 res ...

and Slovakia

Robert Fico Robert Fico (; born 15 September 1964) is a Slovak politician who has served as the prime minister of Slovakia since 2023. He previously served as prime minister from 2006 to 2010 and from 2012 to 2018. He founded the left-wing political party D ...

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 Category talk:Bottom-up regional groups within the European Union