Ebook: Integrating Europe: The Transition Economies at Stake

Bringing the eastern European economies in transition (defined more precisely in the Introduction) under the economic, political, and secu­ rity umbrella of the European Union (ED) has been an ambition of many of these countries from the very start of the so-called annus mirabilis in 1989. The road to gratification of this aspiration since then has been rather bumpy, however one wants to look at recent events. Indeed, since 1989 the relationship between the EU and the economies in transition has been ebbing and flowing with the evolution of two main strands of policy stances in the EU. One has been deep skepticism about bringing these countries into the Union at all in any foreseeable future. This in spite of the fact that, after long hesitation, in mid 1993 the EU Member States committed themselves eventually to explore accession with selected transition economies, as well as Cyprus and Malta. The other has been their evolving attitude toward their own integration endeavors. Hence the dilemmas, in the EU's parlance, of the "deepening versus widening" conundrum. That indeed constitutes the paramount issue addressed in the present investigation.

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The European Union currently faces a double dilemma - deepening versus widening. Broadening the Union toward the countries of eastern Europe poses unprecedented economic, political, social, security, and other problems. The Union can hope to deal with them only if a successful revision of the Maastricht Treaty can be negotiated by the end of 1997. Even then, however, bringing the economies in transition into the Union cannot be taken to be a straightforward matter at all. Apart from the knotty budgetary implications of eastern accessions, a good case can be made that the transition economies individually and as a group are not likely to be able to discharge the obligations of membership and profit from the core benefit of the single market at any time in the near future, certainly not by the year 2000.
The volume traces the current policy dilemmas facing the Union, the topics around which the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference has been crystallizing, the policy dilemmas of monetary union, the lessons to be drawn from assisting the transition economies, the core issues of accession negotiations, and the adoption of a pre-accession strategy in the interest of the potential members as well as the present Union. It is also argued that, in the process, the assistance efforts to economics in transition that cannot join any time soon or others that will not join should be modulated in the same spirit in order to better reflect the interests of the Union.