ABSTRACT
The Cold War essentially ended during the Gorbachev era in the second half of the 1980s, and was finalized with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The painful chapter of the division of Europe was seemingly closed. After two decades of stagnation, the European integration process was invigorated by this momentous turning point: in the 1990s, an expanded European Union (EU-15) became the predominant power in a safe Europe.
