Abstract

This chapter discusses the roles played by multilateral diplomats of the Central European states (CESs) in international organizations (IOs). Central Europe in the narrower sense comprises the states that were independent in the interwar period and retained statehood throughout the Cold War, i.e. Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia (later the Czech Republic and Slovakia), Hungary, Poland and Romania. In turn, Central Europe in the broader sense also includes the states between today’s Germany and the Commonwealth of Independent States, i.e. the Baltic States formerly incorporated within the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR): Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as the Balkan countries emerging from the break-up of the old Yugoslavia, i.e. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia, along with Albania. This chapter employs the narrower of the two definitions.