The Economies in Transition and the EU: The Experience to Date

Abstract

Almost as soon as the ‘revolutions’ of 1989 erupted in the eastern part of Europe, beginning with Hungary and Poland, the smaller and more western of these countries aired their strong desire “to return to Europe.” This expression has meant many things, of course, and it would have been more constructive if observers could keep the “idea of Europe,” however elusive, separate from what the “European Union” has embodied (Havel 1996). Confounding the two is definitely not very helpful. For the purposes at hand, however, I take the expression to mean, as emphasized by one after another policy makers in particular of the smaller economies in transition, the ambition to seek, as quickly as possible, close economic, political, and security ties with the then EC. Their express aim was to become members of that organization, and join the’ spirit’ in which they believed the EU still to be functioning, at the earliest possible moment, in part to integrate themselves fully into the large common market and extricate themselves from the CMEA ‘markets.’ It bears to recall that the latter, and the institutional arrangements within the CMEA context, were then being avidly spurned, especially by the central European countries. They did so for economic, ideological, political, security, and undoubtedly an entire array of convoluted other reasons (see Brabant 1990, 1991), whose foundations are at times difficult to grasp, and perhaps for that reason very often glossed over by the impatient newfangled advisers, including the many assistance providers, of these countries.