The paper examines the background of current national and minority conflicts in Eastern and Central Europe and argues that a deeper-going analysis of these phenomena calls for a reconsideration of the traditional European territorial-administrative institutions. It argues that the European State-structure as shaped in the 17–19th centuries is the greatest obstacle to the prevention of global dangers, then looks at the typical arguments against dismantling the present national-state borders.

The conclusion is that European nations are primarily cultural nations and they have to survive in that form for the 21st century.