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
Western European Union 1992: Associate membership was created to include the European countries that were members of NATO but not of the European Union. Associate members Poland, the Czech Republic & Hungary joined the EU in 2004. Kirchberg – 1994: Countries that at the time were not part of either NATO or of the EU. All of the following nations joined both NATO and the EU by 2007. The following missions, mainly in the Balkans, were deployed by the WEU: This leaflet outlines the WEU's cultural and social (non-military) structures and activities before they were transferred to the Council of Europe in 1960.