Society And Economy 2008/2 [antikvár]

PREFACEBy Eastern enlargements, integration maturity has become an important issue of the economics of integration. Earlier, in the process of European integration, the question was largely ignored (at the level of customs union or common market) for a number of reasons. Particularly in the first period, the economic development and structure of countries entering the European integration were basically similar, and all were deemed to be mature for integration. The Treaty of Rome only stipulated for participation in the European Communities that the country in question be European and democratic. Although it left some uncertainties in terms of geographical definition (for Turkey, for example), it was general enough to open up a possibility of accession as wide as possible. For the enlargements of the 1980s, political considerations were clearly dominant.The necessity of formalising integration maturity criteria in the EC/EU became obvious in the context of higher stages of integration (single market and EMU) and Eastern enlargements. We started dealing with integration maturity under multiple research programmes at the World Economy Department of the Cor-vinus University of Budapest in the early 1990s (at that time Budapest University of Economic Sciences). We obtained larger financial support for researching the issues under the National Research and Development Program (NKFP - financed by the government) between 2002 and 2004. Since then, we continued the project on a more modest basis by support of the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA - which finances basic research through the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), and the Jean Monnet Program. Due to restricted resources we limited ourselves to theorising integration maturity (defining theoretical frameworks and1588-9726/S20.00 2008 Akademiai Kiado, Budapest