A couple of people I know from the new additions to the EU (ie: Poland, Czech Republic & Slovakia) have hinted that calling them Eastern European isn’t such a great term any more - reminding them of Russian occupation, communism and oppression.
Geographically Czech is in central Europe (Prague is almost dead centre) Athens and Helsinki are considerably further East than Prague & Warsaw.
Agreed. As soon as ‘North America’ refers to everything above the equator and nothing below.
It’s a sociopolitical term. Austria = West, Czech Republic = East, even though Vienna is east of Prague. What we can hope for is that the reasons for this term persisting ceases to exist. Which seems to be happening, although I’ve only speculative observation of talk in the media of the Baltic countries as such, or of the central-eastern group identified by name.
I agree that the term is outdated. Former Eastern European countries might make more sense, if you want to recognize that there is still some catching up to do economically. If a country has a democratic government and reasonably free markets, it really doesn’t make much difference where it’s located within Europe. One miight more reasonably talk about Catholic vs Protestant vs Orthodox regions.
It may mean that the term “Central Europe” (roughly equal to the old German and Austro-Hungarian empires about 100 years ago) come back into more use, and that “Eastern Europe” will be limited to Russia and other countries that used toi be in the Soviet Union or the Russian Empire.
The term “Central Europe” was in current use until World War II to describe the area now covered by Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, and maybe even Poland. It makes sense to me to bring it back.