Central and Eastern Europe Soviet Union; the independent states in former Yugoslavia (which were not considered part of the Eastern bloc); and the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (which chose not to join the CIS with the other 12 former republics of the USSR). The CEE countries are further subdivided by their accession status to the European Union (EU): the eight first-wave accession countries that joined the EU on 1 May 2004 (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Slovenia), the two second-wave accession countries that joined on 1 January 2007 (Romania and Bulgaria) and the third-wave accession country that
European Democratic Union European Democratic Union The European Democratic Union Group was a Gaullist political group with seats in the European Parliament between 1965 and 1973. The French Gaullists split from the Liberal Group on 21 January 1965 and created a new Group called the "European Democratic Union", ("not" to be confused with the association of Conservative and Christian Democrat parties founded in 1978 called the "European Democrat Union" or "EDU", nor the Conservative Group called the "European Democratic Group" founded in 1979). The Group was renamed on 16 January 1973 to the "Group of European Progressive Democrats" when the Gaullists were joined