Prospects for integration in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA)

In analyzing the future of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), it is useful to assess both the centrifugal and centripetal forces affecting regional economic integration. Centrifugal forces include the existing structure of production in Eastern Europe; problems of coordination; and inefficient price systems, among others. Centripetal forces include the worldwide energy crisis; Western inflation and recession; the growing importance of trade blocs; and numerous other factors contributing to the increasing hard-currency indebtedness of the Eastern European countries. Many of these external events have increased the attractiveness for CMEA countries of intrabloc economic relations and provided a momentum for CMEA integration. Analysis of the various forces leads to the conclusion that Soviet economic policy vis-à-vis Eastern Europe will remain crucial in determining the direction and speed of economic integration. Soviet economic involvement with Eastern Europe seems to have been costly for the USSR during the past decade and so it is not obvious that the USSR will attempt to push integration much further than it now stands.