Economic Problems of Transition in Central and Eastern Europe

The idea of EDS - European Doctoral Seminar - was born in 2000, i. e. three years ago, to give students from different Central and East-European countries the opportunity to discuss parts of their Ph D theses prepared in the field of economics. In Autumn 2001 the first conference was organised in Budapest, Hungary. One year later, in the Summer 2002, more or less the same participants met in Bamberg, Germany. In May 2003 they - and also their supervisors - had the pleasure to be guests of the University of Tirana, Albania. In a retrospective of these three years we can speak about continuity as well as about changes in the EDS project. First of all, continuity in the group of participants, therefore the development of the students' research could be shadow by their colleagues. Problems discussed on earlier conferences could again be analysed on later meetings, but now from other points of view or taking into account the new results, new methods, etc. Students could learn from each other how to think or how the colleagues are thinking about economics in different regions of Europe, but at the samt time they could learn to present ideas, approaches and results on international scientific meetings. Continuity could be observed also in the development of the personal relations between the articipants. In Budapest we had the first polite, but also basically self-controlled contacts to students from other countries, in Bamberg the national status of the students had lost all its earlier and traditionally based importance, in Tirana, everybody felt to meet friends. The aim of the EDS - to bring together young researches from different regions - has been perfectly reached. Last, but not least, the kind hospitality of the organising institution has been developed also continuously.
The main, qualitative change in the program was its extension from three to four countries by involving the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina. The presentation of the actual economic situation of every newly participating country, its problems and the way choosen there for solving them help to detect similarities and differences in the economic and social development in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, i. e. will help to understand the deep complexity of the transition process. Finally we would like to express our thanks to the local organisation comitee, to Professor Dhori Kule, Dean of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Tirana, and Professor Fatmir Mema, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of
Economics of the University of Tirana. Editors are indebted to Margit Árkos and Gábor Halász for technical support and to the Doctoral Counsil of the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Business Administration for financing this publication. Last, but not least, we express our thanks to the DAAD for financing the conference in Tirana.