This paper discusses the transition agenda and provides the key economic characteristics of selected Middle East and North Africa countries (MENA) in comparison with selected Central, East and Southeast European countries (CESEE). We intend to identify some regularities in transition processes...

In the wake of high and rising oil prices since 2003, the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have seen dynamic economic development, enhancing their role in the global economy as investors and trade partners. Real GDP growth has been buoyant, with non-oil activity expanding...

The key point is about Russia, old and new, being a counterrevolutionary power: Russia's post- Napoleonic War and moreover post-1848 policy was counterrevolutionary abroad and conservative, even when reformist, at home, as is Russia's current post-Soviet, post-Cold War policy. However, while the...

The southern European periphery suffered a severe setback in its catching-up process versus Western Europe after the financial crisis with GDP dropping by 10% between 2008 and 2012 and unemployment increasing to 20% for Greece, Portugal and Spain. We analyze first the reason for this setback,...

The CIS region is of vital importance for the EU countries considering that both are interconnected through cooperation or membership in supranational political and economic institutions (OSCE, WTO, OECD, NATO, etc.), through transport and energy corridors, through investment, trade and...

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 discusses the issue of labor force mobility in a broad sense, and analyses how changes in social security policy and the structure of the social safety net (SSN) affects different aspects of labor force mobility. The text is structured as follows: Introduction, then follows Chapter 2,...

The euro crisis has rekindled questions about the advantages and disadvantages of membership in the European Monetary Union. In the Northern periphery of the EU, the different monetary regime choices of Finland and Sweden have created a particularly interesting testing ground for the benefits of...

The report focuses on the relative macroeconomic performance since the global financial crisis of six Northern European countries with a special emphasis on Finland. While fiscal and monetary policies have definitely impacted on macroeconomic outcomes in the six countries examined, as a whole...

The collapse of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe marked a historical event for the countries on both sides of the iron curtain. Using the recently released EU KLEMS database on detailed sectoral growth and employment measures, we analyse the productivity performance in the period...