Abstract
Starting on 1st of May 2004, 11 countries in Central-Eastern and South Eastern Europe and in the Baltics (EU11) joined the European Union in three consecutive waves. Half a generation later, and a full generation after the start of transition in the region, we thought it would be opportune to look into the convergence experience of these countries. The two volumes of this book offer a collection of contributions on this matter.
The views expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the European Commission.
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Notes
- 1.
We will refer to the region as CESE and the 11 countries as EU11 and to the process as the eastern enlargement of the EU throughout the two volumes.
- 2.
Slovenia and Croatia were parts of the former Yugoslavia. Politically and in its everyday life, Yugoslavia was much less isolated than the rest of the region and Soviet domination was much less direct. The form of collective ownership of productive assets in Yugoslavia was also somewhat different from that in other countries in the region and its economy was less isolated. Nevertheless, the fundamental characteristics of its economic system were very similar to those of the other countries in the region, regarding relative prices, distortions in resource allocation and incentive structures that strongly influenced—although in somewhat different ways—corporate behaviour, employment and productivity.
- 3.
Volume II contains contributions on the working of these channels. The introduction to that volume provides a more detailed overview of the main findings and discusses their relevance to the nature of the convergence process in EU11.
- 4.
More recently, China’s Belt and Road strategy also targets large infrastructural investment projects. However, these projects are financed by loans, financing is linked to the projects and promotes Chinese companies, and the total size is much smaller than EU funding of investment.
- 5.
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Landesmann, M., Székely, I.P. (2021). Introduction: The Story and the Lessons. In: Landesmann, M., Székely, I.P. (eds) Does EU Membership Facilitate Convergence? The Experience of the EU's Eastern Enlargement - Volume I. Studies in Economic Transition. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57686-8_1
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