ABSTRACT
This chapter compares the trajectories of the transition observed in 11 countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE-11), which are members of the European Union (EU), and Ukraine, a country that has never had, due to internal and external reasons, any clear roadmap towards integration with the EU. In 1989, shortly before the economic transition started, the GDP per capita of all the CEE-11 countries was well below Western European levels, ranging from 36% of the German level in Poland to 65% in Slovenia and in Czechia. The relative economic underdevelopment of this part of Europe had deep historical roots. All the CEE-11 countries started their economic transition in 1990–91, once the decline of Soviet power and the fall of the Berlin Wall made it possible to dismantle the communist political regime and to start rebuilding the market economy.
