On the relationship between the east's transitions and European integration

Abstract

This paper provides crucial elements of the backdrop for better coming to grips with the uneasy relationship between the European Union (EU) and the transition economies (TEs), especially those that covet full membership. Expectations on both sides differed widely and on all too many occasions continue to run separate courses, thus hindering a more constructive rapprochement between the TEs and the EU. After a brief summary of the various strands that informed the EU's integration movement, the paper briefly restates the economic, political, and social situation in the EU on the eve of the east's transitions. Then it provides the essential ingredients of the two intergovernmental conferences (IGCs) organized in 1990-1991. Thereafter it examines the essential elements of the Maastricht Treaty and the 1996IGC. The latter s outcome and the subsequent high-level EU deliberations are analyzed in light of the east's expectations with regard to entering the EU.