EU ENLARGEMENT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

EU Enlargement:

Economic Development and the Information Society

Geomina Turlea and Marc Bogdanowicz (eds.)

In this book, twenty researchers and scientists from thirteen different countries
of the enlarged Europe plus Turkey have joined forces to offer us their insights
into the development of the Information Society in their respective countries:
Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania,
Slovenia, Slovakia and Turkey.

These experts offer us their analyses of these developments as they occurred
during the fi rst fi ve years of the new millennium. Their analyses encompass

the issues of technological absorption, of economic growth and of cohesion across
the enlarged European Union.

This book shows that the history of Information Society take-up in these countries
has mainly been about catching-up under harsh economic constraints. The results
are encouraging: at the turn of the century, the overall economic and social
conditions of the - at-the-time - Candidate Countries were such that most analysts
believed these countries were at risk of making no progress at all towards building
up their Information Societies.

Furthermore, several of these countries appear to have taken the innovative
path earlier than others, and, in fact, growing evidence of some leapfrogging
exists today. One can observe that the countries that started the technological
upgrade of their economies earlier, were often favoured by better initial legacies
and domestic dynamics.

However, there is still a long way to go. The societal transformation towards
a true Knowledge Society - called for by the Lisbon objectives of the European
Union - requires long-lasting and important intellectual and financial investment.
In essence, catching-up is not enough.

The ongoing monitoring of these innovative challenges, and how they are addressed
at regional and national level, is - and will still be tomorrow - an essential
contribution to these countries’ efforts to become world-class economies.