ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the European Union (EU) member-states have responded collectively to the transformation in eastern Europe and considers the way this response has been determined by the relevant national views. The ending of the cold war and the political and economic transformation in former Communist countries in eastern Europe has made heavy demands on the EU member-states and the EU itself. Western Europe had to help the central and eastern European countries to build their democratic systems and market economies almost from scratch. The West German foreign policy towards the Soviet Union (SU) and the other states in eastern Europe has become known as Ostpolitik. The West German Ostpolitik started actually with the normalization of the relations between the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the SU in 1955, shortly after the Federal Republic had recovered its sovereignty.
