Since 1989
With the Fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 the political landscape of the Eastern Bloc, and indeed of the world, changed. In the German reunification, the Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic in 1990. COMECON and the Warsaw Pact were dissolved, and in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
Many European nations which had been part of the Soviet Union regained their independence (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus).
Czechoslovakia peacefully separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) fell apart, creating new nations in 1992: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Macedonia (see Breakup of Yugoslavia). FRY was later renamed to Serbia and Montenegro and, in 2006, it broke up into these two countries.
Many countries of this region joined the European Union, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Croatia is an acceding state and will join the EU on 1 July 2013. Three other states Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia are currently official candidates that are yet to start membership talks with the EU.
Read more about this topic: Eastern Europe, History