Jan Růžička: Czechs and Poles. The quiet alliance that is becoming the centre of Europe

When the declaration on cooperation between three — soon to be four — Central European states was signed at Visegrád Castle in February 1991, the world watched us with mild, indulgent interest. Post‑communist countries trying to organise themselves into a grouping with more symbolic than real weight were meant to help each other on the road towards the structures of the West. Thirty‑five years later, it is not we who are moving towards the centre of Europe. It is the centre of Europe that is moving towards us.

I say this without pathos and without exaggeration. The numbers speak for themselves — and they speak more loudly than politics is yet able to hear. In the first half of 2025, the Czech economy grew by 2.4 percent year on year, twice as fast as in the whole of 2024. Poland exceeded three percent and remained the European Union's fastest‑growing larger economy. At the same time, the European Commission revised its eurozone growth forecast for 2026 down to 0.9 percent. The German economy, to which our region has been welded for three decades, has failed for the second year in a row to emerge from technical stagnation. When Berlin sneezes, those of us in Prague and Warsaw no longer fall ill the way we did ten years ago. We simply open a window.

This is not a cyclical deviation. It is a structural change that will not be reversed by another cut in eurozone interest rates or another stimulus package from Brussels. Central Europe — with Czechia and Poland in the lead — is ceasing to be a satellite of the Western European core. Slowly but irreversibly, it is becoming a core of its own.

The end of the German ecosystem

For three decades we operated within an arrangement that in Prague we called "the extended German workshop," and that in Warsaw was simply called geographic pragmatism. The German economy pulled our exports, German capital financed our factories, German regulatory standards shaped our laws. In return, we received stability, technology transfer, and the sense of belonging to something larger. It was a good deal — as long as the German model rested on industry, exports and cheap Russian energy.

Those three pillars are no longer there. German industry is losing ground, exports are falling for the second year running, and cheap energy from Nord Stream is a memory. For our region, this means two things. The first — the bad one — is that we are losing our most important customer. The second — significantly better — is that we are also losing our most convenient excuse for not doing anything on our own.

Look at the data. The German share of Czech exports still amounts to 31.6 percent, but only five years ago it exceeded 33 percent. In Poland the share has never been that high — and it is precisely Poland, with the most diversified export structure in the region, that today benefits most quickly from the fact that its economy was never entirely designed around Munich and Wolfsburg. Intra‑regional trade in Central Europe is growing in a way that even five years ago looked like statistical noise.

At the same time, the structure of capital flowing into our region from outside is shifting. Where the Germans built back offices, the Koreans are building hubs. Hyundai, LG, Samsung — these names in Bratislava, in Jaworzno, in Győr today sound as natural as Bosch and Siemens. The difference between a back office and a hub seems subtle, but in practice it is the difference between being a second‑tier supplier and being a strategic partner.

Czech‑Polish exchange. A neighbourhood that began to pay off

The most visible manifestation of this new order is the dynamics of trade between Czechia and Poland. In 2025, Czech exports to Poland reached 20.7 billion dollars — Poland is today the third‑largest market for Czech exports, behind only Germany and Slovakia. Czechia, in turn, ranks steadily among Poland's six largest trading partners. Total exchange of goods between our countries comfortably exceeds 35 billion dollars annually.

These numbers matter not because they are high. They matter because they are growing at a time when Czech and Polish trade with Germany alike is flat or declining. Our economies have learned to grow not against the German downturn, but alongside it. And alongside it means: thanks to each other.

The economic convergence of our two countries now has structural foundations. We have similar GDP per capita in purchasing power parity, similar demographic challenges, similar investment rates, similar digitalisation indicators. Poland and Czechia are today the two most mature economies in the region, which — something that would have been hard to imagine in 2010 — can serve each other as mutual reference points, not merely as auxiliary markets. Polish logistics companies dominate in Czechia. Czech energy and financial groups are increasingly visible in Poland. Polish e‑commerce is becoming the standard for Czech consumers. The Czech automotive industry is investing in Polish capacity and trading in Polish components. We are so close to each other — economically, culturally, geographically — that we are beginning to treat one another not as neighbours, but as collaborators in a single venture.

In this lies the greatest, though rarely articulated, value of Czech‑Polish cooperation. What we do together lowers transaction costs for both economies. What we do together increases our bargaining power in Brussels. What we do together creates supply chains that are more resilient to external shocks than classical chains dependent on a single German node. Prague and Warsaw are starting to function as two poles of a single Central European economic platform. That is a qualitative difference.

Defence. Poland as the security anchor of the region

The second area in which Central Europe has transformed faster than it has yet noticed itself is defence. In 2025, Poland allocated 4.3 percent of its GDP to defence — the highest ratio in NATO, higher than the United States, higher than the Baltic states, higher than any other ally. In its 2026 budget, this figure is set to rise to 4.8 percent. We are speaking of a defence outlay of nearly 47 billion euros annually. Within NATO, Poland is today the sixth‑largest payer in absolute terms — surpassed only by significantly larger economies. This is not merely a reaction to Russian aggression. This is a deliberate geopolitical project. Poland is announcing to the world that it will no longer be a rear‑echelon NATO state. Poland wants to be a front‑line NATO state — and it already is.

For Czechia, this is of fundamental importance. Czech defence doctrine over the past three decades has rested on the assumption that our security is guaranteed by two things: NATO membership and the proximity of states more exposed than ourselves. Poland is taking on the role of the first line of defence of Central Europe. Czechia is a direct beneficiary of that fact — and we are aware of the value that this status brings.

Underpinned by all of this, the political convergence between Prague and Warsaw on matters of Russia, Ukraine and NATO's eastern flank is today something far greater than rhetoric. It is a practical synchronisation of strategic interests. Regardless of which governments will sit at Strakova Academy and at the Chancellery on Ujazdowskie Avenue over the coming years, the fundamental logic of this cooperation will hold. Too much now binds us for it not to.

A sympathy that cannot be decreed

There is one thing that cannot be constructed from military budgets or trade agreements. That is mutual sympathy between nations. And it is precisely here that the Czech‑Polish relationship is achieving something that, for anyone who remembers the 1990s, is striking.

In January 2026, the Czech Centre for Public Opinion Research (CVVM) asked Czechs which countries they consider allies of the Czech Republic. Poland came first. Eighty‑one percent of Czech citizens recognised Poland as key ally — more than Germany, more than France, more than the United States.

In February 2026, the Polish Centre for Public Opinion Research (CBOS) ran a parallel survey in Poland. Czechs ranked second among the nations Poles like most, with 55 percent expressing positive feelings, behind only the Italians at 58 percent and ahead of Slovaks, Americans and all our German neighbours. We are not, on either side, talking about isolated sympathies. We are talking about a steady consensus that Poles and Czechs simply feel comfortable with one another.

This is no accident. It is the result of thirty years of conflict‑free neighbourhood, tens of thousands of mixed marriages, millions of mutual tourist visits, a shared experience of transition, a similar sense of humour, similar literature, a similar attitude towards authority — and, let us not pretend otherwise, a similar feeling that we are neither East nor West, but a Centre with a value of its own.

Thirty years ago, Polish and Czech societies knew each other mainly through anecdotes. Today we know each other from trade, from business, from weekend trips, from international project teams. Czechs work in Krakow. Poles live in Prague. Polish companies build Czech warehouses. Czech restaurants open in Warsaw. This is not "friendship of nations" in the style of 1950s propaganda. It is something harder to fabricate: the mutual respect of adult partners.

Visegrád without the rhetoric

In this context, it is worth saying clearly: the Visegrád Group never was and should not be a values‑based project. It is a pragmatic platform of four states with convergent geographic and economic interests. It functioned excellently during the migration crisis from 2015 onwards. It functioned during the COVID pandemic. It functions whenever Central Europe needs to speak with one voice on matters of the EU budget, agricultural policy or industrial regulation.

Political tensions between individual V4 members existed and will continue to exist. Robert Fico's Slovakia is not Donald Tusk's Poland. Andrej Babiš's Czechia is not Péter Magyar's Hungary. But Visegrád was never meant to be an ideological project and should not be judged through that lens. It is excellent coordination instrument — and as such it carries value precisely where the four states are able to agree. The Czech‑Polish axis within the V4 is today the strongest it has been in the group's history. That is a fact on which we can build further, regardless of where the political winds in Prague, Warsaw, Bratislava or Budapest happen to blow at any given moment.

Why PPF is moving towards Poland — and bringing Shakespeare with it

I write this not only as an analyst, but as a representative of PPF Group — an investment group managed from Prague, with assets above 42 billion euros across 25 countries, for which Poland has long been one of the most important European markets. It is no accident that one of our largest recent commitments has been InPost: a stake we built from 2023 to 28.75 percent, becoming the company's largest shareholder. In February 2026, together with FedEx, Advent International and Rafał Brzoska's A&R Investments, we signed an agreement valuing InPost at 7.8 billion euros, in which PPF stays on as a long‑term 10 percent partner. We are looking further at Poland — actively. For a Central European investor, it would be negligent to treat the EU's fastest‑growing larger economy as anything other than a priority market.

And because no economic story acquires lasting meaning without values and culture, I am glad that PPF is the general partner of a project which, from 11 July to 19 August 2026, will bring the Czech tradition of open‑air Shakespearean theatre to the Gardens of the Royal Castle in Warsaw. "Szekspir pod Gwiazdami" is the first time our Summer Shakespeare Festival, after a quarter‑century of summers in Prague, Brno, Ostrava and Bratislava, has crossed into Poland. Economies grow where people want to meet each other.

The next decade

Let me close honestly. I do not know what politics in Prague and in Warsaw will look like five years from now. I do not know with what majority Andrej Babiš's government in Prague will end its term, or whether Donald Tusk's coalition will retain power in the Polish elections of 2027. I do not know how the new Hungarian government of Péter Magyar will reposition Budapest within the V4, nor where Robert Fico's Slovakia will be heading. What I do know is that, regardless of political configuration, the foundations of Czech‑Polish cooperation are stronger today than they have ever been since 1991. And I know that in five years they will be stronger still.

Not because someone will sign a particularly good declaration. Not because some Visegrád summit will produce particularly important communiqués. But because tens of thousands of managers, engineers, designers, students, cultural figures, journalists, scholars, and entrepreneurs are doing every day work that ten years ago still had to be invented, and that today is already obvious.

Poles are today the closest large strategic partner of the Czechs. Czechs are today, alongside the Italians, the nation Poles feel most affection for. Poland spends more on defence than the United States. Czechia is growing twice as fast as in 2024. Trade between our economies exceeds 35 billion dollars. These are not random events. This is the economic and geopolitical geography of the twenty‑first century currently being set. And its centre — though Brussels has not yet noticed — is no longer in Frankfurt or in Paris. It is somewhere between Prague and Warsaw. On this line, a new Europe is being built.

And that, dear readers, is the best news our region can give itself on the thirty‑fifth birthday of the Visegrád Group.

Jan Růžička is Chief External Affairs Officer at PPF Group.