ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some historical context to current conditions in central Europe, describes and evaluates the more important points of national friction, and considers some likely scenarios in the development of inter-ethnic and international relations in the region. The closely related western Slav groups, the Czechs and Slovaks, maintained a loose association in the great Moravian Empire but underwent separate development after the 11th century. Slovak deputies attacked Havers propositions for assuming emergency powers as another example of Prague-centrism that subverted Slovak national interests. Slav-Hungarian conflicts date back to the 9th century, when Magyar tribes completed their migration from Central Asia into the Danube plain and occupied a wide swath of territory separating the western and southern Slavs. Conflicts between Poles and Germans date back to the earliest contacts between western Slavonic and Germanic tribes. Relations between Germany and the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic have not experienced any major discords since the 1989 "velvet revolution.".
