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The 2011 Polish presidency of the EU Council performed well in terms of management and mediation. It met the key criteria for assessing satisfaction or at least the other member states and institutions voiced no criticisms as to its content and proceedings. The presidency was generally able to tackle the problems efficiently and deliver results, with the sole exception of the Schengen area enlargement to include Bulgaria and Romania. On the leadership front, the challenge of mounting pressure on the eurozone and the growing divide between all 27 EU member states proved to be too great for a presidency held by a country outside the eurozone. However, a few of the interventions made by leading politicians, including the prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, were seen as being pertinent and timely in protecting overall EU cohesion. Adapted from the source document.

The volume is an attempt to assess the meanings of 1989, in particular the multiple transformation processes and their effects in Eastern Europe. Obviously, the realities of the post-communist transformations have not met the expectations. Were the expectations too high? Did democratic institutions prove incompatible with local cultures? Was their implementation too fast to correspond to a genuine development of democratic culture? Whatever the reasons, the road to democracy has turned out to be steeper and the communist legacy heavier than expected. The authors of this volume seek to comprehe