Measuring Progress in Transition and Towards EU Accession: A Comparison of Manufacturing Firms in Poland, Romania and Spain

Article Abstract:

This article provides new evidence on progress in transition and the `readiness' for accession of enterprises in two EU applicant countries. A major innovation is to benchmark them against Spain. Approximately 200 manufacturing firms were surveyed in each of Poland, Romania and Spain. Newly-established private firms in both Poland and Romania are found to be growing the fastest, but on measures of integration and investment, it is new and privatized Polish firms that most resemble Spanish ones. Polish state-owned firms, and most Romanian enterprises, typically are less integrated. Polish firms tend to lag behind Spanish ones in complying with EU directives, but are ahead of Romanian ones, although awareness of and compliance with directives does not vary with ownership type. Progress in transition at the country level seems to be consistent with improvements in compliance with much of the acquis communautaire.

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Living in EMU: Prices, Interest Rates and the Adjustment of Payments in a Monetary Union

Article Abstract:

Balance-of-payments problems for the EMU member countries will not vanish by virtue of the use of a single currency. This article discusses two aspects of the adjustment of payments in a monetary union that may have major repercussions for the EMU countries, for their policy-makers and for the Union's institutional design. The first aspect concerns the role of national banking systems in the adjustment process. The second is the role of changes in general price levels, and hence in the terms of trade. The two aspects are interconnected. In addition to structural features that may hinder changes in interest rates and the terms of trade in the EMU, the presence of institutional commitments of member countries that may work perversely is considered.

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The dynamics of justice and home affairs: laboratories, driving factors and costs

Article Abstract:

The rapid development of justice and home affairs into a major field of EU policy-making since the beginning of the 1990s can be explained by a combination of specific `laboratories' - which helped pave the way - and `driving factors' which triggered development and expansion. Whereas the Council of Europe, Trevi and Schengen have served as effective laboratories, new or increasing transnational challenges to internal security, Member States' interests in a `Europeanization' of certain national problems and the dynamic of its own generated by the launching of the `area of freedom, security and justice' as a major political project have all acted as major driving forces. Yet the rapid development has also had its price in terms of deficits in parliamentary and judicial control, complexity and fragmentation, an uneven development of the main justice and home affairs policy areas and a tendency towards restriction and exclusion.

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