ABSTRACT
The Cold War mentality and exaggerated enemy images are dying down. The Cold War and the East-West confrontation have caused that the ideologies of East and West have been considered for a long time in light of this confrontation. Moslim fundamentalists reproach the West a certain decadence and a lack of moral values. Without agreeing in detail with their diagnosis or therapy their criticism should not be dismissed too lightly. The revolutionary changes in Eastern Europe should not induce the Western world to an unjustified arrogance. The remaining problems of the world are so big that they can be conquered only by world-wide cooperation - not by some Western dictate. The Helsinki group of countries seems then quite appropriate to make a number of arrangements, in which the Atlantic ties of Western Europe and the Asiatic ties in the Soviet Union are taken into account. The size of Benelux makes that its European integration within the European Community is indispensable.
