The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west and northwest, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east. The Czech Republic has been a member of NATO since 1999 and of the European Union since 2004. The Czech Republic is also a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). As an OSCE participating State, the Czech Republic’s international commitments are subject to monitoring under the mandate of the U.S. Helsinki Commission. From 1 January 2009 to 30 June 2009, the Czech Republic held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The current Czech Republic comprises three historical lands: Bohemia (echy) in the West, Moravia (Morava) in the South-East, and Czech Silesia (Slezsko; the smaller, south-eastern part of historical Silesia, most of which is located within modern Poland) in the North-East. Jointly, these 3 parts can be described as "Czech lands", with Czech language being spoken in all three. When the Czech nation regained its independence in 1918, the new state of Czechoslovakia was constituted to reflect the union of the Czech and Slovak territories that were merged together after the WWI (in addition, a small part of Western Ukraine was included as well). The word Czech itself came into English later via Polish. The current English spelling is the same as an antiquated Czech spelling; however it is unlike the modern echy and esko. This discrepancy arises from a 15th century reform of Czech orthography. Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in the end of 1992, the Czech part of the former nation found itself without a common single-word name in English. In 1993, the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested the name Czechia as an official alternative in all situations other than formal official documents and the full names of government institutions; however, this has not become widespread in English, even though most other languages have single-word names for the country (usually their own variants of "Czechia").