Abstract
As recently as early 1989 Mikhail Gorbachev confidently advocated the strengthening of ties and organizational structures in the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). The ignominious disintegration of both those organizations and the withdrawal of Soviet forces from East Central Europe, following the demise of the Soviet Union, eradicated not only Russian control but even influence in the region. In July 1994, for instance, nine East Central European foreign ministers meeting in Warsaw, including the representatives of Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, all former WTO members, eagerly endorsed continued US military and economic presence in Europe.1 Virtually every East Central European state is seeking membership in NATO and the European Union. Most signed the Partnership for Peace (PFP) agreement with NATO in 1994, an agreement which they view as a stepping stone to membership. Moreover, Western leaders have been promising several of the East Central European states that they will soon gain membership to the European Union. European Commission Chairman Jacques Delors, for example, told Polish leaders during a visit to Warsaw in May 1994 that Poland could join the European Union by the year 2000.2
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Notes
Michael Marrese, ‘CMEA: Effective but Cumbersome Political Economy’, International Organization, vol. 40, no. 2 (Spring 1986), pp. 287–327;
Maurice Bornstein, ‘Soviet Economic Growth and Foreign Policies’, in S. Bialer (ed.), The Domestic Context of Soviet Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1981), pp. 227–35; and
Paul Marer, Statement before Sub-Committee on Europe and the Middle East, Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington, DC, 7 October 1985.
Paul Marer, ‘Reforms in the USSR and Eastern Europe: Is There a Link?’ in Aurel Braun (ed.), The Soviet-East European Relationship in the Gorbachev Era (Boulder, CO, and London, UK, Westview Press, 1990), pp. 84–100.
For instance, the Soviet Union estimated that the oil subsidies for the period at $18 billion were all of the CMEA’s. Cited in Raimund Dietz, ‘Advantages and Disadvantages in Soviet Trade with Eastern Europe: The Pricing Dimension’, in Joint Economic Committee, East European Economies: Slow Growth in the 1980s, vol. 2 (Washington, DC, United States Government Printing Office, 1986), p. 283.
Evgenyi Primakov, ‘Novaia filosofiia vneshnei politiki’ Pravda (10 July 1987).
O. Dmitrieva, ‘War and the Foreign Ministry. Our correspondent talks with Russian Foreign Minister, Andrei Kozyrev’, Komsomolskaia Pravda (3 June 1993).
Iakov Plyais, ‘Challenges of the Times and Partnership for Peace’, Nezavisimaia Gazeta (20 April 1994).
Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, ‘New Russian Barometer’, cited in Richard Rose, ‘Russia as an Hour-Glass Society’, East European Constitutional Review, vol. 4, no. 3 (summer 1995), p. 39.
Leonid Mlechin, ‘Another’s Humiliation Is No Cause for Celebration’, Izvestiia (12 January 1994).
IMF, Direction of Trade Statistics Quarterly (Washington, IMF, 1996), pp. 43 ff.
Michael Mihalka, ‘Eastern and Central Europe’s Great Divide over Membership in NATO’, Transition, vol. 1, no. 14 (August 1995), pp. 48–55.
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© 1997 Roger E. Kanet and Alexander V. Kozhemiakin
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Braun, A. (1997). Russian Policy Towards Central Europe and the Balkans. In: Kanet, R.E., Kozhemiakin, A.V. (eds) The Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25440-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25440-8_3
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