The European Union and the Rest of the World: Complements or Substitutes for Central and Eastern Europe?

This paper is a summary report on the seminar held in Budapest, Hungary on December 4-6, 1997 on the "The European Union and the Rest of the World: Complements or Substitutes for Central and Eastern Europe?" This report is structured as follows. The first section summarizes the most recent developments in the accession process in the individual candidate countries. The second is devoted to the tasks required by the adjustment to the EU's common external tariff and the process of common policy formation within the EU. The following section analyzes what will happen to the existing close bilateral relations after accession: both recent Austrian experiences and the expectations of candidate countries, such as Estonia and Bulgaria, are presented. The prospects for capital flows originating from outside EU are investigated in Section 4, from both the recipients' and external investors' points of view. The following section reports on the already existing and broadening opportunities for technological cooperation across EU borders, based on the example of the EUREKA program. One of the most sensitive issues of EU enlargement is agriculture. The Polish and Hungarian presentations on the subject discuss the challenges that these major agricultural producers face as they enter accession negotiations. Section 7 analyzes the core subject matter of the seminar in the broadest perspective: how does the coming accession fit into the overall process of regionalization and globalization in historical and economic perspective? The report ends with the summary statements at close of the workshop.