1. The Beginnings of the European Union and Overview of the Book

In the year that the Berlin Wall fell, 1989, 11 auto-producing nations of Western Europe (WE) built 14,906,050 passenger cars. Meanwhile, state-led automakers in the former Eastern Bloc nations of Central-Eastern Europe (CEE)—Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland—produced 703,305 cars. Another 445,409 were assembled by state-run firms in the ex-Socialist Southeastern Europe (SEE) nations of Bulgaria, Romania, and Yugoslavia. In 2017, however, WE built 12,271,100 cars, or 17.68% less than in 1989. In contrast, CEE nations produced 4,147,740 cars in 2017 and SEE produced 632,865 cars, for respective gains of 489.75% and 42.09% compared with 1989. Moreover, unlike in 1989, all the cars assembled in CEE and SEE in 2017 were produced by private Western European, American, Japanese, and Korean companies (Ward’s (1956–2018) Ward’s Automotive Yearbook, 1956 to 2018 (Detroit: Ward’s Communications); OICA (1999–2018) Annual Vehicle Production and Sales, and New Registrations Statistics by Nation and/or Manufacturer, 1998 to 2017. Paris: Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs d’Automobiles, http://​www.​oica.​net/​, last 31 January 2019; Jacobs (2017) Automotive FDI in Emerging Europe: Shifting Locales in the Motor Vehicle Industry (London: Palgrave Macmillan); ACEA (2018) The Automobile Industry Pocket Guide 2018/2019 (Brussels: European Automobile Manufacturers Association). Whereas Czechoslovakia encompassed the current nations of Czechia and Slovakia, Yugoslavia traversed today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia).