ABSTRACT
As is generally known, the EU accession of Central and Eastern European countries is predicated upon the fulfillment of economic and political preconditions. Less known, however, is that whereas political criteria, for most of the candidates, are considered less of a problem, economic criteria still pose significant difficulties. In this sense, although there are large differences amongst accession (transition) countries, it is nonetheless true that quite a few of them suffer from spreading poverty and diminishing social cohesion, high inflation and fragility of financial systems, worsening social indicators, weak public administration etc., all of which should indeed cause serious worry as to their ability to achieve ‘real’ convergence2 and cope with competitive pressures inside the EU. Real convergence would, in simple terms, boil down to a rapid increase of income per capita, that is to say, to economic catching-up.
