Structural Adjustment and Romania

Nigel Harris THE cast European economies are very different and becoming increasingly so. Although they are customarily divided between the Viscgrad group (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) where reform is supposedly well advanced, and three others where it is not (Romania, Bulgaria and Albania), in fact the differences are much greater between Hungary, with a long-standing reform programme at one extreme and Albania at the other. Hungary, superficially, seems hardly much different from its neighbour, Austria, even thouglVon the absurd official figures, its per capita income is only 15 per cent of Austria's. Romania, by contrast, is clearly a developing country.