%0 Journal Article
%T Central European States and Their Attempts to Get Closer to EEC
%A Prażuch, Wojciech
%J Central European and Balkan Studies
%V 2017
%R 10.4467/2543733XSSB.17.010.7256
%N Tom XXV
%P 139-154
%K Central Europe, political emigration, East-West relations, European integration
%@ 2451-4993
%D 2017
%U https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/ssb/article/panstwa-europy-srodkowej-i-ich-proby-zblizenia-z-ewg-przed-1989-r
%X 
	During the Cold War, economic relations of the European Communities and Central European states of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid were highly unstable. It was due to lack of institutional frameworks between integration structures of the two parts of the divided continent and the growing protectionism of EEC developing its common trade and agricultural policies. However, the doctrinal crisis of communism and gradual normalisation of East–West relations after concluding the Helsinki Final Act was for some Central European countries an opportunity to make bolder attempts at circumventing the informal prohibition of contacts with Brussels resulting from Soviet political imperatives. The paper is an attempt to demonstrate that it was to some extent in line with the statements of the representatives of political emigrants from Central Europe. They argued that taking advantage of natural interest differences occurring in relations between the Soviet Union and its satellite countries and cautious support of contacts, including economic contact, would lead to disintegration of the eastern monolith and expansion of the “freedom area”, paving the way for future unification of the continent.