• corruption, which is widespread, since there’s no tradition of a critical media, nor is there much of a tradition to organize a democracy

• problems concerning the transition from communism to a free market system

• being kind of forced to choose between the EU plus the USA on the one hand and Russia on the other hand

• privatization of its industry, which created opportunities for some to get incredibly rich, but left most people rather poor

• trying to attract multinationals to invest in their countries by offering low wages and adequate infrastructure

• a brain drain to western countries, lots of talented people leave the region once they have a decent degree (they benefit from fairly ok and cheap education in their home country, but emigrate and other countries reap the benefits)

• Problems with the Roma minority

• The rise of extreme right wing ideologies

• Opposition to rights for the LGBT community

• Much more traditional roles for men and women, even more gender inequality than in the west

• An outdated bureaucratic apparatus

• Trouble regulating the newly embraced free market

• More taboos

• More traditional ethics, compare stances on euthanasia in the Netherlands with those in say, Slovakia

• The post-communist societies had to start from scratch in many different areas

• Especially older people were hard hit by the transition from communism to the so called free market

This was a question on Quora