INTEGRATION OF THE CENTRAL AND EAST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES INTO THE EUROPEAN AND GLOBAL NETWORK ECONOMY*

The integration of the CEECs into the global network economy represents a tremendous challenge for their emerging markets. The accession to the EU is an important exercise of implementing globalization principles at a smaller scale so as to find appropriate solutions to the constraints generated by this process. At the same time, the trans-Atlantic trade flows are more and more taken into consideration, an upward trend being noticed for these countries in recent years (especially with the USA). This paper provides an overall image of trade relationships between CEECs and the EU and USA employing relevant data and information from international sources, at the same time with discussing concrete situations in the particular case of Romania. (*This paper was developed within the STELLA – Transatlantic Thematic Network Project (EU’s 5th FP-R&D, the Growth Program), co-ordinated by Prof. Peter Nijkamp from the Free University of Amsterdam).