Long-term care (LTC) in the new EU member states, which used to belong to the former socialist countries, is not yet a legally separated sector of social security. However, the aging dynamics are more intensive in these states than in the old EU member states. This paper analyses the process of...

The CIS countries' EU-related interests are very heterogeneous. The countries themselves differ not only in terms of their geopolitical and geo-economic situations, and how those affect their relations with the EU, but also in their levels of ambition in relation to the Union, as well as their...

The paper examines theoretical literature, recent EMU accession examples, and current CEECs performance in search of the optimal currency regime for meeting the Maastricht criteria. Currency board arrangements seems to provide the fastest convergence. For other regimes, the markets may have...

This paper discusses the processes of nominal and real convergence and their dependence on exchange rate regimes adopted in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) in the context of their future EMU accession. We focus our argument on the possibility of trade-off between the pace of...

This paper aims to show the uneven process of changes in competitiveness across Polish manufacturing industries during the period prior to Poland's EU membership (1996-2003). Based on the Schumpeterian approach to competitiveness, that is the ability to compete, it looks at changes in...

This paper summarizes the results of CASE's research project on 'Strategies for Joining the EMU' and proposes policy recommendations both for new member states (on how to manage their accession to the Eurozone) and for the European Commission, ECB and old member states (on how to manage and...

This paper deals with the choice of the exchange rate parity upon Poland's entry to EMU. Given that the euro parity should reflect some equilibrium exchange rate, two theoretical concepts are discussed: fundamental and behavioural equilibrium exchange rates. These approaches are then estimated....

This paper aims to study the joint effects of the 2004 EU Enlargement and Russia's entry into the WTO, and the effects of an eventual Russia-Enlarged EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The paper is organized as follows: in Section I, it starts with the brief description of the model used. The...

The paper outlines the probable fiscal consequences of the accession process for the candidate countries and presents specific, fiscally sensitive aspects of acquis communautaire adoption. Apart from membership contribution fees, enlargement-related expenditures, never financed from the budget...

The aim of this paper is to provide a framework for the analysis of implications of various trade policy options for Albania. We study the impact of implementation of the Stablization and Association Agreement, free trade agreements with South-East European neighbors and reduction of the MFN...