EUROPEAN UNION AND SOCIALIST COUNTRIES OF EASTERN EUROPE IN THE YEARS OF “DÉTENTE”; IT’S DEEP INTERESTS IN THE ECONOMIC COOPERATION DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The article highlights deep interests of the leading Western countries, united into the EU, in the development of the economic cooperation with the socialist countries of Eastern Europe in the years of “détente”. The analysis of these interests is based, first of all, on foreign publications of the 1970s. The results of the research are expressed (despite the critical approach), firstly, in the agreement with the statements about the “mutual benefit of economic cooperation” in the “era of détente”. Secondly, the conclusion is made that the West turned various forms of economic relations into the levers of influence on the East European countries with the aim of reducing their economic cooperation with the Soviet Union. Besides, it was the tool for the gradual transformation of the economies of the socialist countries in its economic and political interests. Thirdly; it is stated that government and party leadership of Eastern European countries underestimated the necessity to modernize industry, as well as the scale of the economic reforms during the years of detente, which opened the conditions for solving some of their economic and social problems.