Central and eastern European countries have been and still are adapting their legal framework to the requirements of a Western market economy and the body of EU legislation, the acquis communautaire. As the harmonisation of the national legal framework to EU standards is one of the yardsticks...

In the Baltic States, the process of independence started after the elections in spring 1990 and was completed by August 1991. Fifty-one years after being forced to join the Soviet Union, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania each regained their independence and became once again part of the western...

This paper attempts to identify the standards to which EU candidate countries are expected to conform in order to align their public administrations with those of EU Member States. Originating from SIGMA’s work on public administration reform in central and eastern European countries, in...

OECD's Territorial Review of the Vienna/Bratislava region. The Vienna-Bratislava region on the Austrian-Slovak border rapidly increased its competitiveness after 1989, following a 40 year separation by the Iron Curtain. As a result of the removal of many national and international barriers,...

OECD's Territorial Review of Canada. It finds that Canada is composed of three macroregions: a southern ribbon with all the important metropolitan areas, a zone of rural and non-metropolitan adjacent regions and a sub-continent of remote northern territories. Disparities between these...

This first edition of the OECD Territorial Outlook examines policy developments in the areas of urban, rural and regional affairs in OECD countries. It explains why territorial policies matter and shows how diverse OECD countries can be. It examines such issues as sustainable development,...