Economic North-South Divide also in the Countries of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe

The present economic crisis bears all the familiar hallmarks of the financial, debt-related and structural aspects of a current accounts crisis. All these aspects have lasting level effects and recovery can be very protracted. Export-led growth was an important feature of the 2010-11 recovery period, yet significant inter-country differences persisted. A few countries with severe pre-crisis imbalances (Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic countries) enjoyed reasonable export growth during that period, while other structurally weak economies on the European periphery (Western Balkan countries and the Southern EU) were less successful in that respect. The latter group of countries will continue to lag behind during the forecasting period of 2012-2014, while some of the Central European economies (Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia) should manage to evade the vicious circle of low growth, high interest rates and unsustainable debt.