La reforma de la calidad del producto en los países del centro y del este de Europa y la próxima ampliación de la Unión Europea

Abstract

The paper shows how far the process of regionalisation and international fragmentation of production has had an impact on upgrading product quality. The progressive reorientation of trade toward geographically proximate countries and regions is a well-known worldwide phenomenon. Moreover, the polarisation of East European trade around the EU cluster and the process of upgrading has taken place within a context of progressive trade liberalisation: in fact the improvement in quality levels materialised when trade barriers started to fall. Within the general upgrading process the author found that two countries, Hungary and Slovenia, have fared better than the others in closing the gap with the average intra-EU.