ABSTRACT
In the so-called “fifth enlargement” of 2004 and 2007, Malta, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria joined the European Union. In particular, the former communist economies had to undergo severe structural transformations after the fall of the iron curtain and still when they entered the European Union showed marked differences with respect to the western part. Obviously, these differences also frame their strategies to react to the challenges of the current worldwide financial and economic crisis. It is time to ask the question how the new member countries perform in the restructuring of their economies and in their refurbishment with the crisis. The Economist (20–26 March 2010, p. 29) reported that “The idea of a single ‘ex-communist region’ called Eastern Europe does not bear scrutiny.” In fact the economies of the new member countries show severe structural dissimilarities, which are to be considered in the evaluation of the performance as well as in the design of policy strategies to manage the transformation processes.
