Although Germany has been unified for 35 years, it continues to face a division of attitudes, mentalities, and political affiliations. In many ways, the Wall remains, and Germany is still a country divided. West Germans do not fully comprehend how their Eastern compatriots feel, think, and argue. This breach in mutual understanding still goes across the geographic lines drawn in 1945, keeping Germany a divided country, despite its willingness to be unified. These Cold War ruptures are not just dividing lines for Germany but for Europe as well, dividing ‘Old Europe’ from ‘New Europe’.
These imaginary borderlines reveal themselves through the political approaches of Central and Eastern European countries to important questions such as national sovereignty, self-assertion, strategic autonomy, and connectivity. In domestic policies, these nations protect their Judaeo-Christian values, cultural heritage and national identity. They reject mass migration, want to be responsible for their own life, live in peace and freedom, achieve the European Dream and share the European Way of Life. Having experienced communism, they do not wish others to tell them how to think, live, or vote and fiercely guard their political liberty.
