Where Do Trade Unions Stand in Eastern Europe Today? Stock-taking after EU Enlargement HERIBERT KOHL T he transformation of formerly socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe presented trade unions with an enormous challenge. Their sta­tus as mass organizations with a clearly defined mandate from the state suddenly disappeared in 1989/ 90. The first restructuring phase in the 1990s was characterized by introduction of the market economy, compe­tition, privatization, start-up companies, and job cuts, and, in association with this, the unions were compelled to engage in social dialogue with governments and employers in order to renegotiate working conditions and pay. In addition, countries in the region were required to transpose community law(acquis communautaire) and to integrate into transna­tional contexts in the run-up to eu accession. This two-pronged pressure to modernize stretched labor organizations’ ability to adapt and innovate in the extreme. They had to build up new structures of industrial relations in a short period of time – something that had taken Western Europe decades to develop. Trade Union Reinvention after the Transformation It would be erroneous to assume that the trade unions in Central and Eastern Europe( cee ) 1 have attained some sort of uniformity in the wake of transformation and eu integration. Although they share a similar re­cent history, they have certainly gone their separate ways in their efforts to come to terms with the changed general framework. The pressure to adapt and innovate as a result of the transformation after 1989/ 90 and eu accession in 2004/ 2007 has been enormous and historically unprece­dented. The fact that the results have been so different, irrespective of 1. The cee countries are defined as those acceding to the eu in 2004(Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic) and in 2007(Bul­garia and Romania). ipg 3/2008 Kohl, Trade Unions in Eastern Europe 107