Abstract
This chapter is intended as a broad — but far from comprehensive — survey of issues arising from policies of integration in the ‘two Europes’. Many of the topics are more profoundly dealt with in subsequent chapters. Like Professor Maximova (Ch. 2), I have, however, attempted to cover in a comparative way both the EEC and the CMEA integrations. The proverb says that ‘comparisons are odious’; that is a risk that cannot be avoided if we are to gain intellectual light rather than controversial heat.
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References
Cited by both Balassa and Bognar in F. Machlup (ed.) Economic Integration (Proceedings of the International Economic Association Congress, Budapest 1974), London, Macmillan 1976, pp. 29 and 248. Original source: I. Vajda ‘Integration, Economic Union and the National State’ in I. Vajda and M. Simai (eds.) Foreign Trade in a Planned Economy, London, Cambridge University Press, 1971; p. 41.
In 1937, the ratio to their total trade of the intra-trade of the nine (1980) members of EEC was about 30% (average of imports and exports). But in 1929, before the drastic disturbances of world trade patterns during the 1930$, the ratio had been nearly 40%. Pre-war figures refer to the whole of Germany, and comparisons with post-war data are also affected by other boundary changes. Calculations based on League of Nations, International Trade Statistics 1931 & 1932 and 1937.
M. Maximova in F. Machlup, op. cit.
Guiseppe Schiavone, The Institutions of Comecon, London, Macmillan 1981, p. 24.
For a more refined method of assessing the influence of special factors, such as integration, on the foreign trade structure of a country or group of countries see Gerhard Fink, Measuring Integration, WI IW Forschungsbericht No. 42, 1977. Fink takes into account the extent to which the geographical structure of a group’s trade differs from that of world trade, but adjusts it by the group’s share in world trade. This gives a coefficient showing how far the group’s trade structure is influenced by special factors such as the preferences etc. associated with integration. On this basis (1974 data), intra-CMEA trade shows a considerably greater integration effect than that in EEC (the Six); the greater integration effect in CMEA is much more marked than appears from the simple proportions of intra-trade to total trade for the two groups.
UNCTAD, Handbook of International Trade and Development Statistics, Supplement 1981 UN, New York 1982; Table 7.1.
Ibid.
Josef van Brabant, Socialist Economic Integration London, Cambridge University Press, 1980; pp. 225 ff.
An interesting case has arisen (February 1982) as a result of the French Government’s extension of nationalisation. The control of Roussel-Uclaf, the second largest French pharmaceutical producer, in which the West German firm Hoechst held a large interest, is now to be shared between Hoechst and the French Government. This could be regarded either as an example of Franco-German production cooperation, or as an action by the French Government to secure production in France.
John Pinder, in The World Today, London, Royal Institute of International Affairs, March 1968.
The Basic Principles of the International Socialist Division of Labour, agreed by CMEA in 1962, noted the desirability of the creation of a Communist world economy directed by a uniform plan. See G. Schiavone, op. cit.; pp. 25–31.
Balassa in F. Machlup, op.cit.; p. 25.
van Brabant, op. cit.; p. 255.
P. Wiles and A. Smith in A. Shlaim and George N. Yannopolous (eds.), The EEC and Eastern Europe, London, Cambridge University Press, 1978; p. 76.
L. Zurawicki, Multinational Enterprises in the West and East, Alphen aan den Rijn, Sijthoff Noordhoff, 1979.
See also, R. Dietz and Ilse Grosser, Comecon Energy Perspectives and the Long-term Target Programmes, WI IW Reprint-Serie Nr. 58, 1981.
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© 1983 Wiener Institut für Internationale Wirtschaftsvergleiche (WIIW) (The Vienna Institute for Comparative Economic Studies)
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Saunders, C.T. (1983). EEC and CMEA: Two Processes of International Integration. In: Saunders, C.T. (eds) Regional Integration in East and West. Vienna Institute for Comparative Economic Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06071-9_2
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