Mapping out vulnerable sectors in the Eastern Partnership countries

Project description

The project overviews major Post Soviet economic clusters, the fate of which may have a crucial role in the modernization in the EaP countries (machine industry and energy sectors in particular). The projects will collect and provide the past and current V4 experience in the transformation of these industries. Furthermore, the projects’ aim is also to raise public attention in the V4 societies and in the broader expert community to the economic hardships of this processes.

Vulnerable sectors in the EaP countries share the following features: (1) they constitute around 8-10% (or more) of the national economy; (2) these industries are predominantly capital- and technology intensive sectors with long investment cycles; (3) sectoral relations are concentrated in the CIS, with Russia as a major factor, while the EU-relations have only minor significance; (4) the future management of these sectors may largely affect the social sustainability of the modernization of respective EaP countries.

General Objectives of the Project:

The Project has three goals: (1) Provide a discussional platform for EaP countries to “speak out”, raise the EU and Visegrad decision makers' and public awareness to their problems. (2) Collect and discuss Visegrad and EaP transitional experience from the 1990s in particular. (3) Raising decision makers' and public awareness to the hardships of these EaP sectors and improve the quality of public/policy debates on the integration process of these nations.

Project structure and CASE involvement:

The project encompasses three Sections (macroeconomic overview, machine industry, energy and energy-intensive sectors) each consisting of a 15-20 page long Report. The partner institutes will work in Section Pairs (one from the V4, another from the EaP region) and will be responsible for the elaboration and presentation of their respective Reports, first commented by the Institutes and then discussed with business, other policy experts in detail at the Seminars. CASE is involved in the first section of the project and prepares a macroeconomic report and a kick-off workshop in Warsaw in April 2015.

Sponsor: International Visegrad Fund

Partners:

Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (SK);
Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting (UA);
CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research (PL);
Viitorul - Institute for Development and Social Activities (MD);
CASE BELARUS – Center for Social and Economic Research Belarus