7. Security as an Element of Good Neighbourhood Policy in Central Europe—Case Study: Polish-Slovak Relations After 1990

The Munich Agreement was an agreement regarding the Sudetenland Crisis concluded by the major powers of Europe after a conference held in Munich, Germany, in 1938, and signed on 30 September. The purpose of the conference was to discuss the future of Czechoslovakia in the face of the territorial demands raised by Adolf Hitler. The agreement, signed by Nazi Germany, France, Britain, and Italy, permitted the German annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. Because Czechoslovakia was not invited to the conference, the Munich Agreement is commonly called the ‘Munich Dictate’ by Czechs and Slovaks. The phrase ‘Munich betrayal’ is also frequently used because the military alliance between Czechoslovakia and France was not honoured.

Article 51 states: ‘Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security’ (Charter of the United Nations signed in San Francisco on 26 June 1945).

The 1947 Polish-Czechoslovak treaty was signed in Warsaw. It was concluded for a period of 20 years. The parties pledged to undertake all necessary measures to eliminate any threat of aggression from Germany or any other state uniting with it and to participate in all international actions aimed at safeguarding peace and security. They agreed to provide each other with immediate military aid and other forms of assistance in the event of aggression against them, not to participate in alliances and coalitions directed against the other party, and to conclude agreements concerning economic and cultural cooperation between them.

On 13 June 1958, in Warsaw, Poland and Czechoslovakia signed a treaty confirming the border at the line of 1 January 1938 (i.e. restoring the border that had existed before the Munich Agreement transferred territory from Czechoslovakia to Poland), and since then there have been no conflicts over this matter.

Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine that began on November 2013 with public protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (‘Independence Square’) in Kiev. The protests were sparked by the Ukrainian government’s decision to suspend the signing of an association agreement with the European Union, opting instead for closer ties with Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. The protests led to the 2014 Ukrainian ‘revolution’. Opposition to this in some eastern and southern regions escalated into the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, its later military intervention in Donbas, and the subsequent war there.