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Central and Eastern Europe

Central and Eastern Europe is a geopolitical term encompassing the countries in Northeast Europe (primarily the Baltics), Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Europe (primarily the Balkans), usually meaning former communist states from the Eastern Bloc and Warsaw PactinEurope, as well as from former Yugoslavia. Scholarly literature often uses the abbreviations CEEorCEEC for this term.^[1][2][3] The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also uses the term "Central and Eastern European Countries" (CEECs) for a group comprising some of these countries. This term is sometimes used for "Eastern Europe" instead for more neutral grouping.^{[4][5][6][7][8]}

Definitions[edit]

The term CEE includes the Eastern Bloc (Warsaw Pact) countries west of the post-World War II border with the former Soviet Union; the independent states in former Yugoslavia (which were not considered part of the Eastern bloc); and the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (which chose not to join the CIS with the other 12 former republics of the USSR).

The CEE countries are further subdivided by their accession status to the European Union (EU): the eight first-wave accession countries that joined the EU on 1 May 2004 (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Slovenia), the two second-wave accession countries that joined on 1 January 2007 (Romania and Bulgaria) and the third-wave accession country that joined on 1 July 2013 (Croatia). According to the World Bank 2008 analysis, the transition to advanced market economies is over for all 10 countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007.^[9]

The CEE countries include the former socialist states, which extend east of Austria, Germany (western part), and Italy; north of Greece and Turkey (European part); south of Finland and Sweden; and west of Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine:

Country	European Union	NATO	Notes
Albania	Candidate negotiating	Member state
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Candidate	Membership Action Plan
Bulgaria	Member state	Member state	[10][11]
Croatia	Member state	Member state	[10][11]
Czech Republic	Member state	Member state	[10][11]
Estonia	Member state	Member state	[10][11]
Hungary	Member state	Member state	[10][11]
Kosovo	Applicant	—	Partially recognized state
Latvia	Member state	Member state	[10][11]
Lithuania	Member state	Member state	[10][11]
Montenegro	Candidate negotiating	Member state
North Macedonia	Candidate negotiating	Member state	[10][11]
Poland	Member state	Member state	[10][11]
Romania	Member state	Member state	[10][11]
Serbia	Candidate negotiating	Individual Partnership Action Plan
Slovakia	Member state	Member state	[10][11]
Slovenia	Member state	Member state	[10][11]
Abkhazia	—	—	Partially recognized state[12]
Armenia	—	Individual Partnership Action Plan	Member state of CIS and CSTO
Azerbaijan	—	Individual Partnership Action Plan	Member state of CIS
Belarus	—	—	Member state of CIS and CSTO
Georgia	Candidate	Intensified Dialogue
Moldova	Candidate	Individual Partnership Action Plan	Member state of CIS
Russia	—	—	Member state of CIS and CSTO
South Ossetia	—	—	Partially recognized state[13]
Transnistria	—	—	Partially recognized state[14]
Ukraine	Candidate	Intensified Dialogue

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, "Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) is an OECD term for the group of countries comprising Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and the three Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania."^[11]

The term Central and Eastern Europe (abbreviated CEE) has displaced the alternative term East-Central Europe in the context of transition countries, mainly because the abbreviation ECE is ambiguous: it commonly stands for Economic Commission for Europe, rather than East-Central Europe.^[15]

See also[edit]

• Baltic states
• Caucasus
• Central and Eastern European Online Library
• Central Europe
• East-Central Europe
• Eastern Europe
• Eastern European Group
• European Union
• EuroVoc
• Regions of Europe
• Southeast Europe
• Three Seas Initiative
• Visegrád Group

References[edit]