REGIONAL COOPERATION AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

PART I:
EU growth rates and a sign that those countries are catching up with the rest of the EU.
Table 5 shows that the GDP per capita in the region raised during the period of 18 years
for 23, 5 per cent but this are the result of uneven growth of two regions. Countries, which
are already in the EU have obtained the increase in GDP per capita of 39,4 per cent while
Western Balkan countries suffered an decrease of GDP per capita for one fifth (index 80,6
per cent for the whole period). A poor performance of the whole region has been opposite
with the world tendency of GDP per capita, which grew faster than in the region. In the
year 1989 South Eastern Europe has got GDP higher than used to be in the world as a whole
(for 16,6 per cent). In the year 2007 the region used to be only 1, 2 per cent above the world
level of GDP per capita.
What countries contributed to such poor results of SEE Europe The annual growth rate of
GDP per capita shows that in the first period of transition (1989-1998) the negative growth
rate of GDP per capita occurred. Few exceptions should be noted: Greece remained on the
upward route, followed by Albania and Hungary. All other countries have got negative rate
of growth: the largest being on the territories which experienced the economic consequences
of the war.
In the second period of transition (1998- 2007) the situation has changed: all countries have
obtained a sizeable increase in the GDP per capita. However, larger growth rates were in
the countries which are already members of the EU than in WBCs which are on the way
to be accepted in EU. Taking the whole 18 - year’s period in analysis, Western Balkan
countries have obtained a negative rate of growth of GDP per capita (regardless that there
used to be an increase of GDP per capita in Albania, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina).
On the other side the new member states of the EU are witnessing rather modest increase
in GDP per capita (1, 2 per cent yearly).
2. Comparative analysis of the performance of South Eastern Europe
in the period 1989-2007
The world is witnessing unprecedented rates of growth in the second half of the 20 th
century (Madisson, 2007). In spite of the fast population growth in the period 1950-1973,
the growth rate of GDP per capita is much higher in the period 1950-1973 (2,91%) than in
the period 1913-1950 (1,82%). The same applies to the growth in the period 1989-2007 for
which we have presented the figures for SEE in this paper. It is evident from the figures that
the declining tendencies in the SEE population don’t correspond to the world tendencies
(see table 4). The increase of GDP is less than a third of the rate obtained in the world as a
whole. Finally, GDP per capita has been growing in SEE countries in this period by a rate
of growth which was 40% lower than in the world. The conclusion is clear: South Eastern
Europe is lagging not only behind the world, but also the Western Europe and the USA. If
we compare the figures of SEE with those of China and India as transition countries, the
picture is rather depressing.
When comparing the performances of SEE countries in the analysed period we have
observed huge differences in the rates of growth which could be only partly explained by
22