ABSTRACT
Fundamental changes in the political and economic setting of Europe are underway. The East bloc, with its economic, political, and military institutions and its social system no longer exists; its hegemonial power, the Soviet Union, has been dissolved. All Eastern countries aim at establishing parliamentary democracies and market economies. The European Community (EC) has taken new steps toward deepening integration. Germany has been united. A “new architecture” is emerging on this continent. The core of the future Europe will be the EC, which most probably will include also some countries of Central Europe.1 Austria will join the EC in the next few years; for Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics, and Poland an EC-membership within a ten-year period is a realistic possibility.
