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The Vilnius Ten including Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia called the evidence presented to the Security Council by Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State "compelling". Iraq posed a "clear and present danger" they concluded. Bulgaria and Romania pledged free access to their air spaces and territorial waters.
As a result of the large sums which were spent on public instruction in Croatia and Slovenia under Austrian rule, only a comparatively small proportion of the population is illiterate.
The ministry of finance forecasts a rise in the country's GDP from 59 percent to 70 percent of the European Union's output in 2005 comparable to Slovenia and far above Poland with a mere 40 percent. The Czech Republic is preparing itself to join the eurozone shortly after it becomes a member of the EU in May 2004. Foreign investors are gung ho.
Nor do the advanced members of the club fancy a common label. Slovenia abhors its Balkan pedigree. Croatia megalomaniacally considers itself German. The Czechs and the Slovaks regard their communist elopement a sad aberration as do the Hungarians. The Macedonians are not sure whether they are Serbs, Bulgarians, or Macedonians. The Moldovans wish they were Romanians.
It should be remembered that the Croats and Slovenes, though members of the great family of Southern Slavs, have by no means as much in common with their Serb kinsmen as is generally believed. Croatia and Slovenia have both educated and wealthy classes.
The countries of central Europe from Slovenia to Hungary and the Baltic dismissed the communist phase of their past as a "historical accident" and vigorously proceeded to seek integration with Western Europe, notably Germany, much as they have done until the rise of Fascism in the 1930s.
At the same time, the Turks, after having devastated Serbia and Croatia, descended on Slovenia with the sword, burning pulling down, and terrifying everywhere. Yet the great question of the ecclesiastical language could not be stifled.
Serbia, on the contrary, has a very small educated class and practically no wealthy class, it being said that there is not a millionaire in the country. Slovenia and Croatia each have their aristocracies, with titles and estates and traditions; Serbia's population is wholly composed of peasants, or of business and professional men who come from peasant stock.
Their natural counterparts are the "Industrial Bases". Within the former Eastern Bloc, Russia, Poland, Hungary and Slovenia are, to a limited extent, such generators. Israel is such an economy in the Middle East. Industrial Bases These are economies that make use of the intellectual property generated by the former type within industrial processes.
Almost two thirds of respondents in surveys conducted by the EU in Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia and Lithuania are undecided about EU membership or opposed to it altogether. The situation in the Czech Republic is not much improved. Only Hungary stalwartly supports the EU's eastern tilt.
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