This essay attempts to go beyond presenting the bits and pieces of – still ongoing – crisis management in the EU. Instead it attempts at finding the ’red thread’ behind a series of politcally improvized decisions. Our fundamental research question asks, if basic economic lessons learned...

The paper addresses five issue areas. First it describes the plurality of trajectories in central and eastern European transformations, offering a broad typology. Then it addresses the drift between acceptance of democracy and the market, owing to growing inequalities. Third, problems of poverty...