{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.0168, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0064, 'mean_word_length': 4.749425287356321, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Central and Eastern Europe in Twenty Years

How to define central and eastern Europe (CEE)? For the purposes of this chapter the CEE countries are defined as those involved in the EU's much vaunted Eastern Partnership Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. No consideration of the future of the CEE is possible without a brief analysis of their recent history. When the Soviet Union collapsed almost two decades ago, there was much talk of a common European home stretching from Vancouver to Vladivostok. World leaders attending the conference that agreed on the Charter of Paris for a New Europe in November 1991 were full of hope for a brave new world in which disputes would be resolved peacefully and institutions would be inclusive as opposed to exclusive. The expectations in 1989-91 were very high. Academics were writing about the end of history and the triumph of liberal capitalism. President Bush spoke of a new world order. After the horror of living with mutual assured destruction (MAD) for decades, Europeans could now unite and invite Russia and its former satellites into the common European home. A new dawn appeared to be on the horizon. But as Yugoslavia descended into murderous nationalism and Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait it quickly became obvious that there was no escape from Realpolitik. If expectations following the collapse of communism were high, they were matched by illusions on both sides about the EU's ability to establish a political-economic order covering the entire continent. It gradually became clear, however, that what might be possible between a core group of like-minded countries with a similar GDP per head in Western Europe was not easily exportable to the East. It took many years for the EU to exercise its transformative powers in those countries that had signed association agreements in the 1990s when the prospect of EU membership was the huge carrot. It was to prove impossible to achieve similar transformations in Russia and the CEE countries where the golden carrot was not on offer. In contrast to the CEE countries, Russia has no ambitions to join the EU. Instead it has sought to re-establish itself as a great power with a specific 'droit de regard' over the 'Near Abroad' where 25 million ethnic Russians live. It is difficult to see this policy stance changing in the foreseeable future. Relations between the EU and Russia have been difficult during the past two decades and reached a new low with the conflict in