Europe at the Crossroads (11/02)
When the results of the Irish referendum on the Nice treaty became official in September, a sigh of relief reverberated throughout the European Union (EU) and beyond, namely into the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Although it’s hard to say for sure what would have happened had it gone the other way, one thing is certain: it wouldn’t have been pretty. Vaclav Havel went so far as to warn that failure to ratify the Nice treaty would lead to a new Iron Curtain. Other CEE leaders simply preferred to grovel and beg to be let in.