ABSTRACT
The end of the Cold War has generated considerable speculation about the prospects for future East-West European relations. Many observers have argued that the Cold War bipolar military division of Europe would be replaced with a set of broader and more diffuse security challenges within which economic issues would come to play an increasingly important role. In the early 1990s, this new security agenda threw up questions about the future evolution of the European Community and, more particularly, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). There are a number of important differences in terms of how the European Union and NATO debates on enlargement have subsequently developed. The emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe were clear that their benchmark of success in the system transformation process was entry into western organizations. The end of the Cold War produced calls for the construction of a pan-European security community.
