engleski

Central and Southeast European Post-communist EU members: How Useful was it to be a Member of the European Union?

After the breakup of communism and multinational communist federations, the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe have taken somewhat different paths in their socio-economic development. All of the countries opted for the market economy and reforms, and most of them decided to join the process of European integration. However, some were more and some were less successful. Since 2004, the European Union has expanded three times, accepting 13 more countries into its membership. Out of these, 11 were post- communist countries from Central and Southeastern Europe, which had to overcome the difficulties of political and economic transition, fulfilling many demands put before them by the European Commission. The aim of this paper is to study the 11 post-communist EU members by examining their basic economic data, and to see if European integration (prior and after the accession) has benefited their economies. The second group of countries examined here are the non-EU members that presently form the Western Balkans, in order to compare their economic performance with the post-communist EU members. The differences between the 11 post-communist EU members were also studied in order to determine whether the geographic position and the year of the EU accession (2004, 2007 or 2013) were the factors that influenced their economic performance. The results have shown that despite significant differences among the post-communist members of the EU, they have all benefited from the process of the EU integration.

Central and Southeastern Europe ; the Western Balkans ; the European Union ; economic growth ; gross-domestic product (GDP) ; economic crisis.

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