Limits for the provision of economic stability to Central and Eastern European countries

The Central and Eastern European countries' efforts to become members of the European Union as soon as possible demonstrate their eagerness to benefit not only from market access to the European Union (EU) and from access to the Union's agricultural and regional funds to continue their transition to market economies. They also indicate their readiness to sacrifice some vital areas of their newly-won economic and political autonomy to become part of the comprehensive web of the EU's economic, political, and social system. This paper discusses the state of readiness of the Central and East European Countries (CEEC) to become EU members over the next few years and the Union's capacity to absorb up to ten CEECs over the next decade or so. This paper concludes that the economic and political opening of the CEEC has been smoother and took place with lesser societal conflicts than initially expected. However, these changes have to master a set of difficulties that come from too slow an adjustment to global challenges. This leads to impairments of international economic competitiveness that, in turn, slow necessary adjustment. The main reason is not lacking democratic legitimacy but both the structural conservation of factors stemming from the socialist past and the social consequences that come from an uncompromising opening of the economies.