ABSTRACT
All the counties discussed in the book are members of the European Economic Area and the Schengen area, most of them are European Union (EU) member states and European North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states. Five out of the 12 countries are euro area member states. Among the three groups the Baltic states are the most integrated group being members of the EU, the Schengen area, the euro area, as well as NATO. The Visegrád group is less integrated, with only one country, Slovakia, being a member of the euro area. The Nordic countries are the least integrated, with two non-EU European Free Trade Association member states and with only one country, Finland, in the euro area. The chapter seeks to explain why the countries and country groups have taken such different approaches to European integration and why two of the counties originally opted to stay out of NATO but then applied to join NATO in 2022.
