I think he means: geographically, Europe has been said to start at the Atlantic cost and proceed to the Ural mountains. Starting from the Biscay coast, the westernmost third of this region is pretty much France and Germany, and the might Duchy of Luxembourg and cheese eating Danes. The middle part is Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and such. The eastern part is all Russian.

The western-centric notion of "Eastern European" includes any one who cooks with sour cream, knows what is slivovitz, and (hates the Russians exclusive-or started WW1). We've never heard of Belorus or Moldavia, so don't know how to account for them.

In that sense, the geographic central Europe and the cultural eastern Europe are the same.