ABSTRACT
The detrimental effects on the transition process of weaknesses and obsolescence in Central Europe’s technical infrastructure - the primitive State of telecommunications systems, for example - are obvious. Following the formation of Central Europe’s first post-communist government after the Polish elections of June 1989, and the subsequent moves to democracy which took place in what was for decades labelled “the Soviet bloc”, the East-West divide in Europe gave way to a much more complex European economic and political landscape. Post-communist states face a broad range of problems, varying from country to country, but all have had to concentrate in the short term on macro-economic stabilization and reducing inflation. Macro-economic stabilization has had to go hand in hand with a complex process of structural transformation. These have had to be mutually reinforcing, as adjustment programs are unlikely to succeed under conditions of rapid inflation, acute balance-of-payments difficulties, and other macro-economic disequilibria.
