Belinsky Andrey Victorovich – PhD in Political Sciences, Senior Researcher, INION RAS
The author examines the evolution of the relationship between Western and Eastern Europe in the conditions of geopolitical turbulence and crisis of the world order in the first decades of the XXI c. and identifies several stages in the development of relations between «old» and «new» Europe after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Iron Curtain. The first stage (1989 – late 1990s) was characterized by an euphoria (which was replaced by disappointment) and the gradual economic integration of Eastern European countries into the EU market. At the second stage, when the countries of the former socialist camp joined the EU in the mid-2000s, a number of contradictions emerged between the new EU members, on the one hand, and Brussels, on the other, due to different understandings of national sovereignty, foreign policy differences, etc. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the mid-2010s, the countries of Central-Eastern Europe (CEE), whose political mouthpiece became the Visegrad Group, began to conflict with Brussels, Paris and Berlin. This trend was clearly evident during the migration crisis of 2015–2016, when the CEE countries, together with Austria, blocked the so-called Balkan route. After the beginning of the SMO of the Russian Federation, the role of the CEE region in the European Union increased significantly, which was due both to the geographical location of the region and to the active assistance to Kyiv from Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. The author comes to the conclusion that Central-Eastern Europe is gradually turning into a center of power, although neither its place in the system of international relations nor the nature of its interaction with Germany and France have not yet been determined.
Western Europe, Central-Eastern Europe, Visegrad Group, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, V. Orban, international relations.
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