The European Economic Community and the Balkans during the 80s of the 20th century – Reflections of the Cold War

Authors:

Pages: 201-214

Abstract:

The author forms an argumentation to the following thesis: the approach of the European Economic Community (EEC) to the Balkans in the 1980s – in the cases of Grece and Bulgaria – was predetermined on the reflection of the Cold War. In this manner the paper discuses three different geographical and temporal perspectives: first, the European integration project as a product of the Cold War – the relationship between the creation and the progress of the European integration project in the 1950s and the impact of Plan Marshal, the foremost motivation for the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in the cases of Germany and Italy and the impact of the Hungarian crisis on creation of EEC. Second, the second enlargement of EEC as a product of Cold War realities – the EEC opinion to the prospect of Greek (the Balkan West) membership as a reflection of the Cold War; the incentive of the Greek membership in EEC for the Greek political elites. Third, the reflections of the Cold War on the relationships between EEC and Bulgaria – the European Community’s approach to Bulgaria (the Balkan East) in the late 1980s; the framework of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon); the Bulgarian approach to EEC – the official communist discourse in the last years of Cold War.

Keywords:

European integration, the European Economic Community, Cold War, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Greece

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