ABSTRACT
Western, Central and Eastern Europe are in the midst of one of the greatest economic transitions in their collective history. The major shifts in the swiftly unifying European continent include responding to:
• the economic and social integration of Western European eco nomies and cultures and resulting disappearance of “artificial” economic trade borders and barriers;
• the recent crumbling of Communism; • the opening of Central and Eastern Europe; • the opening of Russian, Asian and Middle-eastern markets; • the imploding globalization of the world economy and the fierce
international competitiveness of the booming U.S., Canadian and Mexican North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) economies;
• expansion of the economies of the Asian tigers led by Japan;
• international expansion of world markets and competition driven by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT);
• recent demographic shifts including the aging of European popu lations; and
• the emergence and growing dominance of service-sector driven high technology markets for the distribution of goods and services. Two high tech advances include the deployment of advanced high speed rail (HSR) systems across the continent and high speed communication technologies across the world.
