Short description:

This edited volume analyses the ways in which EU membership contributed to the convergence process of member countries in the Baltics, Central-Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, and also explores countries that are candidates for future EU membership. Importantly, EU membership stands to benefit member states and speed up convergence to the global frontier through several channels. These channels include trade, investment, finance, labour, and laws and institutions.

Convergence has also taken place at a global level and the speed of convergence of significant groups of low- and medium-income countries has never been as fast globally as it is today. This volume explores whether EU Member States from the region are converging faster as a result of their EU membership. Global integration has certainly played an important role. Industries have seen the creation of global value chains, which have championed trends also inside the EU. A large part of FDI flows and financial integration in the world have been persistent features of globalization. Have these countries experienced more intensive integration through these channels because of EU membership, with its much tighter institutional and political anchorage, than their fundamentals and global trends would suggest? 

Long description:

This edited volume analyses how EU membership influenced the convergence process of member countries in the Baltics, Central-Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. It also explores countries that are candidates for future EU membership. The speed of convergence of significant groups of low- and medium-income countries has never been as fast globally as it is today. Contributions by lead researchers of the area explore whether these countries are converging faster than their fundamentals and global trends would suggest because of EU membership, with its much tighter institutional and political anchorage

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction.- 2. Convergence of the EU member states in Central-Eastern and South Eastern Europe (EU11): a framework for convergence inside a close regional cooperation.- 3. Towards a new growth model in CESEE: three challenges ahead.- 4. Regional dynamics in EU11.- 5. How the European Union made Poland European Again.- 6. Transformation of the financing and foreign trade model of the Hungarian economy after EU accession.- 7. Macroeconomic trends in the Baltic States before and after accession to the EU.- 8. Bulgaria and Romania: The Latecomers to the Eastern Enlargement.- 9. Convergence of non-EU countries in the CESEE region.