ABSTRACT
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, communism in Central and Eastern Europe fell apart like a house of cards and it seemed that almost everywhere in the region a transition towards parliamentary democracy and market economy was taking place. Many saw it as a democratic revolution. International financial institutions moved in and were ready to lend while giving advice according to the prescriptions of the Washington Consensus. Progress in the so-called transition economies was measured in transition indicators that showed a quite differentiated progress in transition towards market economy. But, apart from a few ‘laggards’, capital accounts and foreign trade were liberalised everywhere, the economy was deregulated and state enterprises privatised.
