Central european environmental history and the EU accession

Abstract

This paper focuses on the development of environment-related phenomena in the Czech Republic and in some other Central European countries since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It demonstrates that despite the dreadful shared legacy of the totalitarian period, these countries have made great efforts in a number of fields and they have achieved remarkable results in their approximation to Western Europe, which to a large extent have been guided by the vision provided by accession to the European Union. The differences between Western and Central Europe have decreased significantly, but some still remain. © 2011 American Chemical Society.