Suchergebnisse

This Editorial looks at the process of political and economic integration between the European Union and the European Neighborhood Policy countries with a special focus on the processes linked to trade flows, Foreign Direct Investment and their spatial impacts. This Editorial highlights the key 'unanswered' questions in the existing literature and explores outstanding conceptual and empirical challenges, discussing how the various papers included in the Theme Issue can provide systematic coherent answers to a number of these research questions. The Editorial includes a synopsis of the key findings of the papers and highlights their connections and linkages. It concludes with open questions for further research and a potential agenda for future conceptual and empirical analyses in this area.

AbstractThis paper seeks to review and evaluate a series of theoretical and policy issues with regards to the process of transition and European accession of the Balkan countries. We begin by reviewing some key aspects of economic structure and performance relating to the processes of transition and integration. We then examine in turn what these aspects imply for the assumptions of theory and policy concerning the speed of transition, the benefits of integration, and the process of convergence, as well as for the policy approach to transition, accession and development that was followed in the Balkans. We conclude that this stock-taking, twenty years since the advent of transition in the Balkans and at a time when the region starts to slowly recover from the effects of the global economic crisis, highlights the need for a radical revision of the growth model of the region and the design of a concrete Development Plan for its future.