The European Community And Eastern Europe
As one of the most experienced observers of East-West relations in Europe, Pinder uses his subtle perception and long perspective to set out the policies the European Community will need if it is to pursue seriously its interest in helping east Europeans create pluralist democracies and market economies. His detailed discussion of the "Europe Agreements" the EC has worked out with Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia and the rather different ways the EC can best approach the other countries of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union shows that the process will be a lengthy and perhaps costly one. It will also require more unified action by EC countries than they have shown in the past.
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In the 30 years following the enunciation of the Truman Doctrine in March 1947, promising military aid to Greece and Turkey, America's relations with her Western European allies have been subject to many tensions and fallen into many vagaries, but the alliance has been underpinned by a clear perception of common interest at the most fundamental levels of strategic argument. For the United States, Western Europe has represented not only a vital extension of the American economic system but also a bulwark against geopolitical encroachments on that system by the Soviet Union. For Western Europe, the United States has been not only the sole credible source of military security but - notwithstanding Europe's increasing prosperity - the ultimate provider of her economic security as well.
If ratified, the new EU constitution will change the way the union works. It cannot take effect unless approved by all 25 members, but in only one country -- the United Kingdom -- do polls show that a majority oppose the document. Still, a rejection there would throw Europe into a constitutional crisis. And it could ultimately harm transatlantic relations as well.
At the beginning of the 1980s, we rub our eyes and note, not without relief and astonishment, that more of the familiar foreign policy structures have survived the rough and rugged past decade than have crumbled, collapsed or vanished. Among the survivors are the European Community, the transatlantic partnership and, in a smaller and more precarious yet important enough sense of the term, East-West détente. While it is easy to discern clouds gathering over each of these areas, and just as easy to imagine how developments in one may have a negative impact on the others, it would be only realistic to assume that greater West European integration, enduring transatlantic closeness and some measure of détente , fitful as all three of them may be, will remain hallmarks of the next decade as well.

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