But after the implosion of communism, the situation in Europe was more or less reversed: the defensive demarcation of borders has been replaced by the removal of frontiers across the Continent. However, while General de Gaulle once spoke of a Europe stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals, defining Europe in purely geographical terms omits other criteria – including the European social model and the scale of values on which it is based – of what it means to “belong” to Europe.
但是，在共产主义垮台之后，欧洲的情形多多少少发生了一些逆转：对边界的防卫划分被在整个大陆消除国境所取代。但是，虽然戴高乐将军曾经提到将欧洲从大西洋扩大到乌拉尔，然而，仅仅用地理概念定义欧洲漏掉了“属于”欧洲的含义的其它标准——包括欧洲的社会模式以及其建立的价值标准。