In November 1997 Hungarians voted in favor of membership in NATO, primarily as a step toward membership in the European Union and integration into Western society. Andor examines the changes in Hungarian social, political, and economic life after the collapse of communism in Central Europe. He analyzes the difficulties, both internal and external, to making that transition. In the early 1990s, public discourse was dominated by the enthusiastic slogans proclaiming Hungary's return to Europe. Things can only get better was the prevailing feeling surrounding the dismantling of the state socialist system and the construction of the new parliamentary democracy. From the very early years of transition, however, Hungarians faced large-scale and unexpected hardships in their changing lives which made them the most disappointed nation in Eastern Europe by 1993. In the second half of the 1990s, the policies of the Socialist-Liberal coalition, and particularly the positive developments in the enlargement process of NATO and the EU, restored the belief in a rapid and successful accession to the major Western economic and security organizations. But, as Andor indicates, the beginnings of negotiations about entry into NATO and EU will be merely the starting point of difficulties arising in both economics and politics. A thoughtful and cautious look at a changing Hungary that will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and policymakers involved with Central Europe and contemporary European politics and economics.

Publisher Description

The author presents a well-documented, comprehensive description of the bumpy road Hungary has travelled and the efforts it has made to achieve EU membership. She not only describes the problems, negotiating techniques, and the role of EU institutions and the big and small EU member states in this process but also evaluates the first years of Hungary's EU membership including its presidency of the EU. Her 'insider' report is based on the experiences she gathered in the planning office at the Economic Research Institute of the Academy of Sciences, as an expert in Hungary's negotiations with the IMF and as a member of the Hungarian team negotiating the country's membership of the EU. Her book is a reliable and unique source for all those interested in the history of the change of regime in Hungary and in the everyday functioning of the EU, especially for those striving for EU membership. She reports about the impressions she accumulated in Berlin, Helsinki, Moscow, Washington and Brussels.

More than 25 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, European integration remains a work in progress, especially in those Eastern European nations most dramatically reshaped by democratization and economic liberalization. This volume assembles detailed, empirically grounded studies of eleven states—Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and the former East Germany—that went on to join the European Union. Each chapter analyzes the political, economic, and social transformations that have taken place in these nations, using a comparative approach to identify structural similarities and assess outcomes relative to one another as well as the rest of the EU.