The EU and its Relations with Eastern Europe: Mutual Animosity, Unattainable Friendship and Faraway Neighbours

The politico-economic relations between the European Union (EU) and Eastern Europe are currently entering a new phase, which some scholars qualify as a revival of the Cold War. This insightful book seeks to explain whether and why a Cold War Europe has returned and discusses underlying factors that clarify the relations between East and West since the Second World War.

Nienke de Deugd and Herman W. Hoen comprehensively address the problematic process of EU integration, discussing crucial political, economic and security-related developments during and after the Cold War. De Deugd and Hoen draw attention to the path-dependent nature of European market reform and the processes of democratization in Eastern Europe as key factors in complicating post-communist transformation. Considering the alternating historical developments between rapprochement and estrangement, they illustrate underlying irreconcilable political-economic systems that have disrupted relations between the EU and Eastern Europe.

This book is a crucial read for students of political science and international relations, particularly those focused on post-communist transformation looking for a wide-ranging overview of the dynamics of transformation and integration in post-Cold War Europe.

Nienke de Deugd, Assistant Professor of International Political Economy, University of Groningen, the Netherlands and Herman W. Hoen, Professor of International Political Economy, University of Groningen, the Netherlands and Associate Fellow, School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna (SAIS Europe) of Johns Hopkins University, Italy