Editing Eastern Europe (section)

==History==
{{split section|History of Eastern Europe|date=November 2023|discuss={{TALKPAGENAME}}#History of Eastern Europe}}
===Classical antiquity and medieval origins===

Ancient kingdoms of the region included [[Orontid Armenia]], [[Caucasian Albania]], [[Colchis]] and [[Kingdom of Iberia (antiquity)|Iberia]] (not to be confused with the [[Iberian Peninsula]] in [[Western Europe]]), of which the former two were the predecessor states of [[Armenia]] and [[Azerbaijan]] respectively, while the latter two were the predecessor states of modern-day [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]. These peripheral kingdoms were, either from the start or later on, incorporated into various Iranian empires, including the [[Achaemenid Empire|Achaemenid Persian]], [[Parthian Empire|Parthian]], and [[Sassanid Persian]] Empires.<ref name="Rapp">Rapp, Stephen H. (2003), ''Studies In Medieval Georgian Historiography: Early Texts And Eurasian Contexts'', pp. 292-294. Peeters Bvba {{ISBN|90-429-1318-5}}.</ref> Parts of the [[Balkans]] and some more northern areas were ruled by the [[Achaemenid Empire|Achaemenid Persians]] as well, including [[Thrace]], [[Paeonia (kingdom)|Paeonia]], [[Macedon]], and most of the [[Black Sea]] coastal regions of [[Romania]], [[Ukraine]], and [[Russia]].<ref>The Oxford Classical Dictionary by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth,{{ISBN|0-19-860641-9}}, "page 1515, "The Thracians were subdued by the Persians by 516"</ref><ref>{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=QsJ183uUDkMC&q=Achaemenid+Persians+ruled+balkans&pg=PA345|title= A Companion to Ancient Macedonia|access-date= 22 April 2015|isbn= 9781444351637|last1= Roisman|first1= Joseph|last2= Worthington|first2= Ian|date= 7 July 2011|publisher= John Wiley & Sons|archive-date= 30 March 2024|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20240330042424/https://books.google.com/books?id=QsJ183uUDkMC&q=Achaemenid+Persians+ruled+balkans&pg=PA345#v=snippet&q=Achaemenid%20Persians%20ruled%20balkans&f=false|url-status= live}}</ref> Owing to the rivalry between the [[Parthian Empire]] and [[Roman Empire|Rome]], and later between [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantium]] and the [[Sassanid Persians]], the Parthians would invade the region several times, although it was never able to hold the area, unlike the Sassanids who controlled most of the [[Caucasus]] during their entire rule.<ref>{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=CquTz6ps5YgC&q=sassanids+rule+most+of+the+caucasus&pg=PA27|title= An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires|access-date= 22 April 2015|isbn= 9780313274978|last1= Olson|first1= James Stuart|last2= Pappas|first2= Lee Brigance|last3= Pappas|first3= Nicholas Charles|last4= Pappas|first4= Nicholas C. J.|year= 1994|publisher= Bloomsbury Academic|archive-date= 30 March 2024|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20240330042425/https://books.google.com/books?id=CquTz6ps5YgC&q=sassanids+rule+most+of+the+caucasus&pg=PA27|url-status= live}}</ref>
[[File:Theodosius I's empire.png|thumb|The [[Eastern Roman Empire|Eastern]] and [[Western Roman Empire]] at the death of Theodosius I in 395. The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 while the Eastern lasted until 1453.]]
The earliest known distinctions between east and west in Europe originate in the history of the [[Roman Republic]]. As the Roman domain expanded, a cultural and linguistic division appeared. The mainly [[Koine Greek|Greek-speaking]] eastern provinces had formed the highly urbanized [[Hellenistic civilization]]. In contrast, the western territories largely adopted the [[Latin language]]. The cultural and linguistic division was eventually reinforced by the later political east–west division of the [[Roman Empire]]. The division between these two spheres deepened during [[Late Antiquity]] and the [[Middle Ages]] because of a number of events. The [[Western Roman Empire]] collapsed in the 5th century, marking the start of the [[Early Middle Ages]]. By contrast, the [[Eastern Roman Empire]], called the "[[Byzantine Empire]]" in the West, had a survival strategy that kept it alive for another 1,000 years.<ref>Edward Luttwak, ''The grand strategy of the Byzantine Empire'' (Harvard UP, 2009).</ref>

The rise of the [[Carolingian Empire|Frankish Empire]] in the west and in particular the [[East–West Schism|Great Schism]], which formally divided [[Eastern Christianity|Eastern]] and [[Western Christianity]] in 1054, heightened the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe. Much of Eastern Europe [[Mongol occupation of Eastern Europe|was invaded and occupied by the Mongols]].<ref>Denis Sinor, "The Mongols in the West." ''Journal of Asian History'' 33.1 (1999): 1-44 [http://www.m-hosseini.ir/mongol/articles-1/43.pdf online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709190741/http://www.m-hosseini.ir/mongol/articles-1/43.pdf |date=2021-07-09 }}.</ref>

During the {{Lang|de|[[Ostsiedlung]]}}, towns founded under [[Magdeburg rights]] became centres of economic development and [[History of German settlement in Central and Eastern Europe|scattered German settlements]] were founded in parts of Eastern Europe.<ref>Martyn Rady, "The German Settlement in Central and Eastern Europe during the High Middle Ages." in ''The German Lands and Eastern Europe'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 1999) pp. 11-47.</ref> Introduction of German town law is often seen as a second great step after introduction of Christianity at the turn of the first and the second millennia. The ensuing modernization of society and economy allowed the increased role played by the rulers of [[Bohemia]] and [[Poland]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Jan M. Pisorski|chapter=Medieval Colonization in East Central Europe|title=The Germans and the East|editor1-last=Ingrao|editor2-last=Szabo|publisher=Purdue University Press|year= 2008|pages=31}}</ref>

===1453 to 1918===
The conquest of the Byzantine Empire, the centre of the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]], by the [[Ottoman Empire]] in the 15th century and the gradual fragmentation of the [[Holy Roman Empire]] (which had replaced the Frankish Empire) led to a change of the importance of [[Catholic Church|Catholic]]/[[Protestant]] vs. [[Eastern Orthodox]] concept in Europe. Armour points out that [[Cyrillic]]-alphabet use is not a strict determinant for Eastern Europe, where from Croatia to Poland and everywhere in between, the Latin alphabet is used.<ref>Armour, Ian D. 2013. ''A History of Eastern Europe 1740–1918: Empires, Nations and Modernisation''. London: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 23. {{ISBN|978-1849664882}}</ref> Greece's status as the cradle of Western civilization and an integral part of the Western world in the political, cultural and economic spheres has led to it being nearly always classified as belonging not to Eastern but Southern or Western Europe.<ref>See, ''inter alia'', Norman Davies, Europe: a History, 2010, Eve Johansson, Official Publications of Western Europe, Volume 1, 1984, Thomas Greer and Gavin Lewis, A Brief History of the Western World, 2004</ref> During the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, Eastern Europe enjoyed a relatively high [[standard of living]]. This period is also called the east-central European golden age of around 1600.<ref>
{{cite book
 |author= Baten, Jörg
 |title= A History of the Global Economy. From 1500 to the Present
 |date= 2016|publisher= Cambridge University Press
 |page= 46|isbn= 9781107507180
}}
</ref> At the beginning of the 17th century, [[numeracy]] levels in eastern Europe were relatively low although regional differences existed. During the 18th century, the region began to catch up with western Europe but did not develop as rapidly. Areas with stronger female autonomy developed more quickly in terms of numeracy.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Baten |first1=Joerg |last2=Szołtysek |first2=Mikołaj |date=2017 |title="Girl Power" in Eastern Europe? The human capital development of Central-Eastern and Eastern Europe in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and its determinants |journal=European Review of Economic History |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=29–63}}</ref>

===Serfdom===
[[Serfdom]] was a prevalent status of agricultural workers until the 19th century. It resembled slavery in terms of lack of freedom, with the distinction that the landowners could not buy and sell serfs separately from the specific plots of land to which they were permanently attached. The system emerged in the 14th and the 15th centuries while it was declining in Western Europe.<ref>[[Jerome Blum]], "The Rise of Serfdom in Eastern Europe" ''American Historical Review'' 62#4 (1957), pp. 807-836 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1845515 Online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200207063533/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1845515 |date=2020-02-07 }}</ref> The climax came in the 17th and 18th century. The early 19th century saw its decline, marked especially by the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861. Emancipation meant that the ex-serfs paid for their freedom with annual cash payments to their former masters for decades. The system varied widely by country and was not as standardized as in Western Europe. Historians until the 20th century focused on master-serf economic and labor relations, portraying the serfs as slave-like, passive, and isolated, and 20th-century scholars downplayed the evils and emphasized the complexities.<ref>Boris B. Gorshkov, "Serfdom: Eastern Europe" in Peter Stearns, ed., ''Encyclopedia of European Social History'' (2001) 2:379-88; [https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3460500100/GPS?u=wikipedia&sid=GPS&xid=e29075bb Online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240330042426/https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&u=wikipedia&id=GALE%7CCX3460500100&v=2.1&it=r&sid=GPS&asid=e29075bb |date=2024-03-30 }}.</ref><ref>David Moon, "Reassessing Russian Serfdom." ''European History Quarterly'' 26 (1996): 483–526.</ref>

===Lack of industrialization during the long nineteenth century===
Before 1870 and to some extent until [[World War I]] (the end of the [[long nineteenth century]]), the industrialization that had started to develop in Northwestern and [[Central Europe]] and the [[United States]] did not extend in any significant way to the rest of the world. Even in Eastern Europe, industrialization lagged far behind. [[Russia]], for example, remained largely rural and agricultural, and its autocratic rulers kept the peasants largely in serfdom.<ref>Jackson J. Spielvogel: ''Western Civilization: Alternate Volume: Since 1300''. p. 618.</ref>

===Interwar period (1919–1939)===
{{Further|International relations (1919–1939)|Interwar era}}
A major result of World War I was the breakup of the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires, as well as partial losses to the German Empire. A surge of ethnic nationalism created a series of new states in Eastern Europe, validated by the [[Versailles Treaty of 1919]]. [[Second Polish Republic|Poland was reconstituted]] after the [[Partitions of Poland|partitions of the 1790s]] had divided it between Prussia, Austria, and Russia. New or renewed countries included Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine (which was [[History of Ukraine#Ukraine and the world wars|soon absorbed]] by the Soviet Union), Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Austria and Hungary had much-reduced boundaries. The new states included sizeable ethnic minorities, which were to be protected according to the [[League of Nations]] minority protection regime.<ref>P. de Azcarate, ''League of Nations and National Minorities'' (1945) [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.55314/page/n5/mode/2up online]</ref> Throughout Eastern Europe, ethnic Germans constituted by far the largest single ethnic minority.<ref>{{cite book|title=Orderly and Humane. The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War|author=R. M. Douglas|publisher=Yale University Press|pages=331}}</ref> In some areas, as in the [[Sudetenland]], regions of [[Poland]] and parts of [[Styria (Slovenia)|Slovenia]], German-speakers constituted the local majority, which created conflict regarding demands of self-determination.

Romania, Bulgaria and Albania likewise were independent. Many of the countries were still largely rural, with little industry and only a few urban centres. Nationalism was the dominant force, but most of the countries had ethnic or religious minorities, which felt threatened by majority elements. Nearly all became democratic in the 1920s, but all of them (except Czechoslovakia and Finland) gave up democracy during the depression years of the 1930s in favour of autocratic, strong-man or single-party states. The new states were unable to form stable military alliances and one by one were too weak to stand up against Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, which took them over between 1938 and 1945.

===World War II and onset of the Cold War===
Russia ended its participation in World War I in March 1918 and lost territory, as the Baltic countries and Poland became independent. The region was the main battlefield in the Second World War (1939–45), with the German and Soviet Armies sweeping back and forth; millions of Jews and others being killed by the Nazis in ''[[Generalplan Ost]]''; and millions of others killed by disease, starvation, and military action, or executed after being deemed as politically dangerous.<ref>Timothy Snyder, ''Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin'' (2011) [https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471/ excerpt and text search] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170919203522/https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471 |date=2017-09-19 }}</ref> During the final stages of World War II, the future of Eastern Europe was decided by the overwhelming power of the Soviet Army, which swept the Germans aside. It did not reach Yugoslavia and Albania, however. Finland was free but forced to be neutral in the upcoming Cold War.

Throughout Eastern Europe, [[History of German settlement in Central and Eastern Europe|German-speaking populations]] [[Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)|were expelled]] to the [[West Germany|reduced borders of Germany]] (or even [[Austria]]) in one of the largest ethnic cleansing operations in history.<ref>{{cite book|title=Uprooted: How Breslau Became Wroclaw during the Century of Expulsions|author=Gregor Thum|publisher=Princeton University Press}}</ref> Regions where Germans had formed the local population majority were re-settled with Polish- or Czech-speakers.

The region fell to Soviet control, and communist governments were imposed. Yugoslavia, Albania and later Romania had their own communist regimes independent of Moscow. The [[Eastern Bloc]] at the onset of the Cold War in 1947 was far behind the Western European countries in economic rebuilding and economic progress. Winston Churchill, in his well-known "[[Sinews of Peace]]" address of 5 March 1946, at [[Westminster College, Missouri|Westminster College]] in [[Fulton, Missouri|Fulton]], Missouri, stressed the geopolitical impact of the "iron curtain":
{{Blockquote|From [[Szczecin|Stettin]] in the [[Baltic Sea|Baltic]] to [[Trieste]] in the [[Adriatic Sea|Adriatic]] an ''iron curtain'' has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of [[Central Europe|Central]] and Eastern Europe: [[Warsaw]], [[Berlin]], [[Prague]], [[Vienna]], [[Budapest]], [[Belgrade]], [[Bucharest]], and [[Sofia]].|sign=|source=}}

[[File:Eastern-Europe-small.png|thumb|Pre-1989 division between the "West" (grey) and "Eastern Bloc" (orange) superimposed on current borders:
{{legend|#CB8807|Russia (the former [[Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic|RSFSR]])}}
{{legend|#EAB34D|Other countries formerly part of the [[USSR]]}}
{{legend|#EEC77F|Members of the [[Warsaw Pact]]}}
{{legend|#E9D2A5|Other former Communist states not aligned with Moscow}}]]

====Eastern Bloc====
{{Further|Eastern Bloc}}
Eastern Europe after 1945 usually meant all the European countries liberated from Nazi Germany and then occupied by the Soviet Army. It included the [[German Democratic Republic]] (also known as East Germany), formed by the [[Soviet occupation zone]] of Germany. All countries in Eastern Europe adopted communist modes of control by 1948. They were officially independent of the Soviet Union, but the practical extent of this independence was quite limited. Yugoslavia and Albania had Communist control that was independent of the Kremlin.

The communists had a natural reservoir of popularity in that they had destroyed the German invaders.<ref>Applebaum, pp. 312–33.</ref> Their goal was to guarantee long-term working-class solidarity. The Soviet secret police, the [[NKVD]], working in collaboration with local communists, created secret police forces using leadership trained in Moscow. This new secret police arrived to arrest political enemies according to prepared lists.<ref>Anne Applebaum, ''Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944–1956'' (2012) p. xxix.</ref> The national communists then took power in a gradualist manner and were backed by the Soviets in many, but not all, cases. For a while, co-operative non-communist parties were tolerated.<ref name="Applebaum, p. xxx">Applebaum, p. xxx</ref> The communist governments nationalized private businesses, placed them under state ownership and monitored the media and the churches.<ref name="Applebaum, p. xxx"/> When dividing up government offices with coalition partners, the communists took control of the interior ministries, which controlled the local police.<ref>Applebaum, p. 71.</ref> They also took control of the mass media, especially radio,<ref>Applebaum, pp. 174–191.</ref> as well as the education system.<ref>Applebaum, pp. 172–173.</ref> They confiscated and redistributed farmland<ref>Applebaum, pp. 223–228.</ref> and seized control of or replaced the organizations of civil society, such as church groups, sports, youth groups, trade unions, farmers' organizations, and civic organizations. In some countries, they engaged in large-scale ethnic cleansing by moving ethnic groups such as Germans, Poles, Ukrainians and Hungarians far away from where they had lived, often with high loss of life, and relocating them within the new post-war borders of their respective countries.<ref>Applebaum, pp. 1162–147.</ref>

Under Stalin's direct instructions, these nations rejected grants from the American [[Marshall Plan]]. Instead, they joined the [[Molotov Plan]], which later evolved into the [[Comecon]] (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance). When [[NATO]] was created in 1949, most countries of Eastern Europe became members of the opposing [[Warsaw Pact]], forming a geopolitical concept that became known as the ''[[Eastern Bloc]]''. This consisted of:
* First and foremost was the [[Soviet Union]] (which included the modern-day territories of [[Russia]], [[Belarus]], [[Ukraine]] and [[Moldova]] and the illegally occupied [[Lithuania]], [[Latvia]] and [[Estonia]]). Other countries dominated by the Soviet Union were the [[East Germany|German Democratic Republic]], [[People's Republic of Poland]], [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic]], [[People's Republic of Hungary]], [[People's Republic of Bulgaria]], and [[Socialist Republic of Romania]].
* The [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]] (SFRY; formed after World War II and before its later dismemberment) was not a member of the [[Warsaw Pact]] but was a founding member of the [[Non-Aligned Movement]], an organization created in an attempt to avoid being assigned to either the NATO or Warsaw Pact blocs. The movement was demonstratively independent of both the Soviet Union and the Western bloc for most of the Cold War, which allowed Yugoslavia and its other members to act as a business and political mediator between the blocs.<ref>Jeronim Perović, "The Tito-Stalin split: a reassessment in light of new evidence." ''Journal of Cold War Studies'' 9.2 (2007): 32-63 [https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/62735/1/Perovic_Tito.pdf online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220704114441/https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/62735/1/Perovic_Tito.pdf |date=2022-07-04 }}.</ref>
* The [[Socialist People's Republic of Albania]] broke with the Soviet Union in the early 1960s as a result of the [[Sino-Soviet split]] and aligned itself instead with China. Albania formally left the Warsaw Pact in September 1968 after the suppression of the [[Prague Spring]]. When China established diplomatic relations with the United States in 1978, Albania also broke away from China.

Albania and especially Yugoslavia were not unanimously appended to the Eastern Bloc, as they were neutral for a large part of the Cold War.<ref>Stavro Skendi, "Albania and the Sino-Soviet Conflict." ''Foreign affairs'' 40.3 (1962): 471-478.</ref>{{clear}}

===Since 1989===
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| image1    = EU25-2004 European Union map enlargement.svg
| caption1  = {{legend|#003399|Existing members}} {{legend|#ffcc00|New members in 2004}}<br />[[Cyprus]]<br />[[Czech Republic]]<br />[[Estonia]]<br />[[Hungary]]<br />[[Latvia]]<br />[[Lithuania]]<br />[[Malta]]<br />[[Poland]]<br />[[Slovakia]]<br />[[Slovenia]]
| width2    = 125
| image2    = EU27-2007 European Union map enlargement.svg
| caption2  = {{legend|#003399|Existing members}} {{legend|#ffcc00|New members in 2007}}<br />[[Bulgaria]]<br />[[Romania]]
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| image3    = EU28-2013 European Union map enlargement.svg
| caption3  = {{legend|#003399|Existing members}} {{legend|#ffcc00|New members in 2013}}<br />[[Croatia]]
}}
 
With the [[Revolutions of 1989|fall]] of the [[Iron Curtain]] in 1989, the political landscape of the [[Eastern Bloc]], and indeed the world, changed. In the [[German reunification]], the Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic in 1990. In 1991, [[COMECON]], the [[Warsaw Pact]], and the Soviet Union were dissolved. Many European nations that had been part of the Soviet Union declared or regained their independence ([[Belarus]], [[Moldova]], [[Ukraine]], as well as the [[Baltic States]] of [[Latvia]], [[Lithuania]], and [[Estonia]]). [[Czechoslovakia]] [[Dissolution of Czechoslovakia|peacefully separated]] into the [[Czech Republic]] and [[Slovakia]] in 1993. Many countries of this region joined the [[European Union]], namely [[Bulgaria]], the [[Czech Republic]], [[Croatia]], Estonia, [[Hungary]], Latvia, Lithuania, [[Poland]], [[Romania]], [[Slovakia]] and [[Slovenia]]. The term "EU11 countries" refer to the [[Central Europe|Central]] and Eastern European member states, including the [[Baltic states]], that accessed in 2004 and after: in 2004 the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and the Slovak Republic; in 2007 Bulgaria, Romania; and in 2013 Croatia.

The economic changes were in harmony with the constitutional reforms: constitutional provisions on public finances can be identified and, in some countries, a separate chapter deals with public finances. Generally, they soon encountered the following problems: high inflation, high unemployment, low economic growth, and high government debt. By 2000 these economies were stabilized, and between 2004 and 2013 all of them joined the European Union. Most of the constitutions define directly or indirectly the economic system of the countries parallel to the democratic transition of the 1990s: free-market economy (sometimes complemented with the socially [and ecologically] oriented sector), economic development, or only economic rights are included as a ground for the economy.<ref name="auto">{{Cite journal|last=Vértesy|first=László|date=2018|title=Macroeconomic Legal Trends in the EU11 Countries|url=https://www.dialogcampus.hu/users/default/dialogcampus/uploads/elektronikus_konyvek/pga2018_01_09_vertesy.pdf|journal=Public Governance, Administration and Finances Law Review|volume= 3. No. 1. 2018|access-date=12 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190812055105/https://www.dialogcampus.hu/users/default/dialogcampus/uploads/elektronikus_konyvek/pga2018_01_09_vertesy.pdf|archive-date=12 August 2019|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In the case of fiscal policy, the legislative, the executive and other state organs (Budget Council, Economic and Social Council) define and manage the budgeting. The average government debt in the countries is nearly 44%, but the deviation is great because the lowest figure is close to 10% but the highest is 97%. The trend shows that the sovereign debt ratio to GDP in most countries has been rising. Only three countries are affected by high government debt: Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia (over 70% of the GDP), while Slovakia and Poland fulfill the Maastricht requirement but only 10% below the threshold. The contribution to cover the finances for common needs is declared, the principle of just tax burden-sharing is supplemented sometimes with special aspects. Tax revenues expose typically 15–19 % of the GDP, and rates above 20% only rarely can be found.<ref name="auto"/>

The state audit of the government budget and expenditures is an essential control element in public finances and an important part of the concept of checks and balances. The central banks are independent state institutions, which possess a monopoly on managing and implementing a state's or federation's monetary policy. Besides monetary policy, some of them even perform the supervision of the financial intermediary system. In the case of a price stability function, the inflation rate, in the examined area, relatively quickly dropped to below 5% by 2000. In monetary policy the differences are based on the euro-zone: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia use the common currency. The economies of this decade – similar to the previous one – show a moderate inflation. As a new phenomenon, a slight negative inflation (deflation) appeared in that decade in several countries (Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia), which demonstrates sensitivity regarding international developments. The majority of the constitutions determine the national currency, legal tender or monetary unit. The local currency exchange rate to the U.S. dollar shows that drastic interventions were not necessary. National wealth or assets are the property of the state or local governments and, as an exclusive property, the management and protection of them aim at serving the public interest.<ref name="auto"/>
{{clear}}