Integration and Structural Change: Pre-Accession Experience in the Regions o f the European Union New Member-States

Abstract

This chapter presents a new evaluation of the experience of the European Union New Member-States (EU NMS) economies with respect to changes and adjustments in their territorial structures and balances. It provides evidence that the process of integration of the EU NMS regions is characterized by a divide with respect to industrial performance and structure. The study of the impact of integration on the EU NMS patterns of structural change has attracted the attention of the related literature as development prospects and spatial imbalances seem to be affected by structural parameters. A number of key-questions connecting issues of integration and structural change, and also geography, to issues of growth and performance are convincingly addressed, as regard the EU NMS pre-accession experience. The EU NMS regional-industrial patterns can be extracted on the basis of the shares of each manufacturing sector in each EU NMS region. © Panayiotis Getimis and Grigoris Kafkalas 2007.