The Visegrad Four, a loose alliance of Central European states comprising the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary is celebrating 30 years since its founding in the historic town of Visegrad on February 15, 1991. What led to its creation shortly after the fall of communism, how has it changed over the years and what are its future prospects? I discussed these and other issues with Jan Kovář from the Prague-based Institute of International Relations and began by asking him to explain what purpose the alliance was meant to serve. “Basically, there were two common goals, one –I would say- more important and one a little bit less so. The more important one was to help the countries to coordinate their efforts, to share experience in order to facilitate the three –and later four [after break-up of Czechoslovakia]-countries’ return to Europe –their integration into Euro-Atlantic structures, NATO and the EU. So that was the primary goal, and the second one was to improve cross-border, inter-state, inter-regional cooperation in many fields, from infra-structure to societal level, cultural cooperation, economic issues, cooperation among NGOs, research and education.”