r the euro is not part of the enlargement negotiations but the needed change in the economic regime of the CEAS is already monitored by world financial markets, in the attempt to anticipate whether stability will be sustained after membership - and at what cost in terms of social cohesion. In an environment of global policy convergence, the main effect of EU enlargement on growth and investment will depend on the progress of transition rather than on geographical proximity, or even on any order of entry into the EU. The progress depends, in turn, on macroeconomic stability and structural reforms. Accordingly, macroeconomic policy sustainability serves as a guide for the timing of a convergence program to macroeconomic stability including a catalog of structural measures capable of improving corporate governance, fighting corruption and promoting national cohesion. The structural dimension is specified in the form of principles of good government at the public and corporate levels which reflect the standards found in all mature democracies and currently promoted by international organizations such as the EBRD, the World Bank or the OECD. Some of the CEAS are in the middle of the current EU group in terms of the budgetary institutions, suggesting that they are better fit for fiscal consolidation and, hence, for EU membership than Greece, Portugal or Spain might have been in the 1970s. While there is still much room for improvement, some of the CEAS are close to policy sustainability and to EU procedures and performances, on both macroeconomic, structural and institutional grounds. The fact that CEFTA gathers six of the ten states and that others may join before EU membership also helps set them apart from other transition economies and indeed from previous applicants who had not been members of EFTA - such as Greece or Spain."where is the gap now Mr's of EU member-states?"In the early 1990s, it became fashionable to portray Greece as an a...
