From the introduction of the editors:

Current account problems of new EU members are analysed by Wolfgang Blaas and Karoly Lóránt. According to their view, the accession to the EU and the final entering into the Union opened up the domestic markets of Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) to a hitherto unknown extent. Given the insufficient levels of international competitiveness and other factors, current account balances of the CEECs tend to deteriorate. By means of a case study, i.e. the development in Hungary during the last 25 years, Blaas and Lóránt discuss some typical processes of transformation and transition in the new EU member countries which on responsible for these imbalances. These external imbalances restrict economic growth to a level which is too low to compensate for the high productivity gains due to the catching-up process in efficiency. Hence, even though the CEEC growth rates seem to be comparatively high from a western European perspective, they are still too low to prevent unemployment from rising. The authors take the findings of the Hungarian case as a point of departure for deliberations of alternative policy approaches, opening up some avenues for a more balanced macroeconomic path.