ABSTRACT
Half a generation has passed since the end of the Cold War. All former nonSoviet Warsaw Treaty member-states have joined Western institutions that had not been accessible to them before. Without exception, they have become members of the Council of Europe, NATO and the European Union. Some have also joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). With the invitation to Albania and Croatia at the NATO Bucharest Summit (Bucharest 2008: point 2) to negotiate their NATO membership, and the forthcoming accession of Croatia to the EU, the ‘extension’ process of the West will slow if not fully halt. The ‘long decade’ that has lasted from 1999 (the first Eastern enlargement of NATO) to 2010 (when Croatia should gain membership in the EU), will come to an end.
