This chapter draws the basic markers for the potential role that the new Eastern Europe, and in some respects the East more generally, can prospectively play in the global economy. It also sketches the backdrop against which the concept of European economic integration – ultimately Europe tout court – can be renovated, giving full weight to the East. I am doing so mainly in connection with the concerns that arise from the modifications in trade and payment regimes during the transition. They cannot but exert a determinant role on the eventual place of these countries in the global economy.

Section 1 sets the broad context of the revolutions in the East and what they portend with regard to the “new Europe.” Next I examine the collapse of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), which was formally acknowledged on June 28, 1991, and the transferable-ruble (TR) trade and payment facilities that these countries maintained for over forty years. I also point out there the options from among which the PETs could choose with a view to maintaining order in their already convoluted societal transition processes. Section 3 explores one way in which the post-CMEA can be dealt with by the former members individually and in some regional concert as well. This way, as further detailed in the next section, would also better prepare most of the East for smoother assimilation into the Western integration schemes and for withstanding global competition.