New Europe 2004. Report on Transformation
During this year's Economic Forum another edition of the report was presented. The report evaluates the economic and political situation of 27 countries in the region of Central and Eastern Europe, with a special emphasis on major problems and challenges facing individual countries. The main aim of the report is to listen to the decision-makers and public opinion on the main dangers and difficulties of building an efficient market economy system, civic society, democratic institutions and laying foundations for the development of comprehensive regional and international cooperation.
New Europe 2004 overwiev (pdf)
The year 2004 brought the definite sealing of the division of the countries undergoing transformation into two categories. The eight countries of Central Europe - the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary - became full-fledged members of the European Union, thus ending the fifteen-year period of transformation that had begun with the political changes of 1989. Another seven countries of Southeastern Europe are committed to following the same path. Some of them - Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania - are beginning or continuing accession negotiations, counting on joining the EU around 2007. The remaining group of countries - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro - are strengthening their economic and political ties with the countries of Western Europe, in the hope of beginning negotiations on EU accession in the next few years. The second category of countries groups the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which are pursuing various reform and development strategies; these strategies are clearly different from those pursued by the Central European and Southeastern European countries. The CIS countries do not intend to seek EU membership, at least not in the foreseeable future, and most of them are clearly looking for different forms of regional integration, more focused on mutual cooperation and building an alternative economic and political alliance as part of the CIS. - says Prof. Dariusz Rosati, a coordinator of the Report
Partner Institutions co-operating on the edition of New Europe 2004. Report on Transformation:
- Centre for Eastern Studies
- Foreign Trade Research Institute
- Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights
- Institute for International Relations, Warsaw University
- The Gdansk Institute for Market Economics
- Warsaw School of Economics (SGH)