Eastern European EU members the achilles heel of Merkel's grand EU alliance plans with Russia - by Ian Traynor
As the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, flew to Samara on the Volga last Friday night for dinner with President Vladimir Putin and to open today's summit, it was clear that the meeting was being hijacked by a long list of disputes focused on eastern Europe and the Balkans.
The roots of the estrangement lie in the transformation of the EU with the entry of 10 central European and Balkan states since 2004 - all of them former Soviet satellites nursing grievances to varying degrees against Russia.
The new EU member states of Poland and Lithuania have been arguing this week for the summit to be called off, and criticising the German preparations. For historical reasons, the east Europeans are highly sensitive to any sign of Germany cutting deals with Russia over their heads. Note EU-Digest: "What had been feared by European political insiders before the EU was "forced" by the US to take in the Eastern European nation states into the EU before they had reached at least some form of political stability, is becoming a reality - the new Eastern European EU member states are turning out to be the Achilles heel of Europe."
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