Macedonia, Albania, as well as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
The countries of this region have a lot in common in historical and socio-economic development. After World War II, they were united by belonging to the socialist economic system, which led to stable economic ties with each other and the USSR. Most of them were members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) and the political bloc of the Warsaw Pact.
Currently, these countries are undergoing radical economic transformations, as a result of which their ties with Western Europe have expanded.
Until recently, the political situation in the countries of Eastern Europe remained extremely tense. As a result of hostilities, the countries of the former republics of Yugoslavia suffered greatly.
The countries of Eastern Europe are a single territorial area stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea and. The main features of the economies of Eastern Europe are:
- the coastal position of most states;
- the possibility of access to the sea along the Danube waterway for countries that do not have direct access to the sea (Hungary, Slovakia);
- neighborly position of countries in relation to each other;
- transit position on the way between Western European countries and countries.
All these features create good preconditions for the development of integration processes.
The natural prerequisites for the economic development of the countries of Eastern Europe are also quite favorable, although there is a certain shortage of natural resources.
The level is quite high and amounts to 50 - 60%.
The economy of the countries of Eastern Europe does not represent a single whole. Not only the levels of development and structure differ, but also the directions for solving economic issues and distribution across the territory.
The energy sector of the countries in this region is focused mainly on coal, which is due to the presence of large basins. The region is also characterized by the development of hydropower (the Kozloduy nuclear power plant in Bulgaria and the Iron Gate hydroelectric power station on the Danube).
Focuses on its own raw materials, black - on imported ones. Therefore, enterprises are located in large transport hubs and ports.
The countries of Eastern Europe are quite diverse. - in Poland, Romania. Electrical engineering - in Hungary, Bulgaria, Latvia. The widest range of industries in the Czech Republic.
Has not received widespread development. The best known pharmaceutical
Territory. Natural conditions and resources.
The Central-Eastern Europe (CEE) region covers 15 post-socialist countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic (the Czech Republic includes the territory of the historical regions of the Czech Republic, Moravia and a small part of Silesia), Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Federation Serbia and Montenegro (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania. The area of the region, representing a single territorial massif, is over 1.3 million sq. km. with a population of 130 million people. (1998). Of its constituent countries, only Poland and Romania are included in the group of larger European states; the rest of the countries are relatively small in size (territory from 20 to 110 thousand square kilometers with a population of 2 to 10 million people).
This region of Europe has gone through a difficult path of political and socio-economic development in the context of a dramatic struggle for the peoples inhabiting it by the largest European powers for spheres of influence on the continent. This struggle was waged with particular force in the 19th-20th centuries. between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, Turkey, as well as France and Great Britain. During this struggle and the intensified national liberation movements of the local population, former states were formed and destroyed. After the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, Poland reappeared on the map of Europe, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were formed, and the territory of Romania more than doubled.
Subsequent changes in the political map of CEE were the result of the victory over fascist Germany and Italy during the Second World War. The most important of them: the return to Poland of its western and northern lands with wide access to the Baltic Sea, Yugoslavia - the Julian Region and the Istrian Peninsula, inhabited mainly by Slovenes and Croats.
During the transition of CEE countries from a centrally planned economy to a market economy (late 80s - early 90s), political, socio-economic and national-ethnic contradictions sharply worsened. As a result, Czechoslovakia split along ethnic lines into two states - the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, and Yugoslavia - into five states: the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the republics of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The CEE countries are located between the countries of Western Europe and the republics that were (until 1992) part of the USSR. This is associated with a number of common features of their political and socio-economic development at the stage of transition to a market economy. They are in the process of deep structural economic restructuring, fundamental changes in the nature and direction of foreign economic relations.
The CEE states are striving to expand their participation in pan-European economic integration, primarily in the fields of transport, energy, ecology, and the use of recreational resources. The region has access to the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas, and the navigable Danube flows through it for a long distance; the region's territory can be widely used for the transit of goods and passengers between Western Europe, the CIS countries and Asia. For example, with the completion in 1993 of the Bamberg (on the Main River) - Regensburg (on the Danube River) canal, the possibility of end-to-end trans-European water transport between the North and Black Seas opens up (from Rotterdam at the mouth of the Rhine to Sulina at the mouth of the Danube, a waterway of 3,400 km.) . This is an important link in the development of a unified European network of inland waterways. Another example of the expanding use of the geographical location of the CEE countries is transit shipments through pipelines of natural gas and oil from Russia and other Caspian states to the countries of Western and Southern Europe. The CEE countries signed the European Energy Charter in 1994, which laid down the economic mechanisms for the global energy space throughout Europe.
When assessing natural resources, settlement patterns and regional differences in economic activities on the modern territory of the CEE countries, one needs to imagine the most important structural and morphological features of its relief. The region covers: part of the European Plain in the north (Baltic States, Poland), Hercynian midlands and hilly uplands (Czech Republic), part of Alpine-Carpathian Europe with folded mountains up to 2.5 - 3 thousand m high and low accumulative plains - Middle and Lower -Danube (Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, northern Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria), the southern European Dinaric and Rhodope-Macedonian massifs up to 2 - 2.5 thousand meters high with intermountain basins and foothill plains (most of Croatia and Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania and southern Bulgaria).
The characteristics of the geological and tectonic structures determine the composition and nature of the geographical distribution mineral countries The greatest economic importance are large (on a European scale) deposits: hard coal (Upper Silesian basin in southern Poland and the adjacent Ostrava-Karvinsky basin in the north-east of the Czech Republic), brown coal (Serbia, Poland, Czech Republic), oil and natural gas ( Romania, Albania), oil shale (Estonia), rock salt (Poland, Romania), phosphorites (Estonia), natural sulfur (Poland), lead-zinc ores (Poland, Serbia), bauxite (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary) , chromite and nickel (Albania); In a number of countries there are deposits of uranium ores of industrial importance.
In general, CEE countries are insufficiently provided with primary energy resources. Up to 9/10 of the region's coal reserves (about 70 billion tons) are in Poland alone. CEE contains over 1/3 of the pan-European reserves of brown coal; they are more dispersed across the countries of the region, but still more than half lie in Serbia and Poland. No country (except Albania) has sufficient oil and natural gas reserves. Even Romania, which is better supplied with them, is forced to partially cover its needs for them through imports. Of the total hydro potential of CEE of 182 billion kWh, about half is in the republics of the former Yugoslavia (primarily Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina) and more than 20% in Romania. The region is rich in healing mineral springs, some of which are effectively used (especially in the Czech Republic).
CEE countries vary greatly in size, composition and quality forest resources. In the south of the region, the mountainous regions of the Balkan Peninsula, as well as the Carpathians, are characterized by increased forest cover with a predominance of coniferous species and beech, while in the predominantly flat and heavily cultivated Poland and Hungary, the forest supply is much less. In Poland and the Czech Republic, a significant part of productive forests is represented by artificial plantations, primarily pine trees.
However, among the main assets of CEE - its soil and climatic resources. There are large areas of naturally fertile soils, mostly of the chernozem type. These are primarily the Lower and Middle Danube Plains, as well as the Upper Thracian Lowland. Due to the extensiveness of agriculture before the Second World War, about 10 - 15 quintals were collected here. with hectares Cereal crops. IN
In the 80s, the yield had already reached 35 - 45 c. per hectare, but was still lower than the yields in some Western European countries with lands less rich in humus.
Based on soil and climatic conditions and other natural resources, CEE countries can be conditionally divided into two groups: northern (Baltic countries, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia) and southern (rest of the countries). These differences, consisting of higher temperatures during the growing season and more fertile soils in the southern group of countries, create an objective basis for the specialization and complementarity of both groups of countries in agricultural production. While most of the territory of the northern group of countries is in a zone of sufficient moisture, in the southern group, dry conditions often arise during the growing season, causing the need for artificial irrigation (In the Lower Danube and Middle Danube lowlands, in the second half of the 20th century, one of the most irrigated areas in Europe arose agriculture). At the same time, the climatic conditions of the southern group of countries, combined with healing mineral springs and wide access to warm seas, create important prerequisites for organizing recreation for residents of not only these countries, but also the northern part of the region, as well as tourists from other, primarily European, countries.
Population.
The population dynamics of CEE are characterized by a number of features characteristic of the European continent as a whole: a decrease in the birth rate, an aging population and, accordingly, an increase in the mortality rate. At the same time, the CEE region, in contrast to Western Europe, is also characterized by a significant population decline due to a negative balance of migration. In the second half of the 90s, the average population density of CEE (104 people per 1 sq. km.) was close to that in Western Europe. Country-by-country differences in population density range from 33 in Estonia to 131. At 1 km. sq. in the Czech Republic. There are more significant differences in population density within countries, due to both natural conditions and socio-economic factors. The process of urbanization had a great influence. For most CEE countries, in contrast to the developed countries of Western Europe, the stage of accelerated industrialization and, accordingly, increased concentration of production in cities occurred at a later time, mainly after the Second World War. Therefore, the rate of urbanization during this period was the highest. By the beginning of the 90s, more than 2/3 of the region’s population was already concentrated in cities (in Czechoslovakia up to 4/5). There are few large cities compared to Western Europe. Capital cities stand out sharply, among which the largest two million people are Budapest and Bucharest, and some urban agglomerations (Upper Silesian).
An unfavorable demographic situation (for a number of years, mortality has exceeded birth rates) is especially characteristic of Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Croatia. The situation is somewhat better in Poland, Romania and Slovakia, where in the 90s there was still natural population growth. It is still high in Albania. But within a number of countries there are large regional differences in natural growth, depending on the national composition and religious characteristics of individual population groups. In some areas of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Bulgaria, where significant Muslim groups live, the natural increase is much higher. The consequence of this is a change between the population of different nationalities within each of these countries in favor of representatives of peoples professing predominantly Islam.
For example, in the former Yugoslavia, during the period between the population censuses of 1961 and 1991. due to higher natural population growth, the number of Albanians increased from 0.9 to 2.2 million people and Muslim Slavs (primarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina) from 1 to 2.3 million people. Mainly for this reason and partly due to migration, there have been great changes in the structure of the national composition of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the share of Serbs from 1961 to 1991 decreased from 43 to 31%, and the share of Muslims increased from 26 to 44%)
After the Second World War, in contrast to Western Europe, the homogeneity of the national composition of the population of a number of CEE countries increased significantly. Before the war, in the countries of the region as a whole, national minorities exceeded a quarter of the total population, but, for example, by 1960 they constituted only about 7%. At the same time, the following stood out: single-national countries with a very small proportion of national minorities - Poland, Hungary, Albania; single-national countries with significant groups of national minorities - Bulgaria (ethnic Turks, Gypsies), Romania (Hungarians, Germans, Gypsies); binational countries - Czechoslovakia, inhabited by Czechs and Slovaks, historically associated with a certain territory, moreover, in Slovakia there were also significant minorities - Hungarians and Gypsies; finally, multinational countries - Yugoslavia. The latter was mainly (84% according to the 1991 census) populated by South Slavic peoples, but in some of its republics, primarily Serbia, there were significant groups of national minorities (Albanians and Hungarians).
In the process of aggravation of the political and socio-economic situation in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 80s - early 90s, interethnic contradictions intensified. This led to the collapse of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The Czech Republic and Slovenia have now joined the first group of co-ethnic minorities. At the same time, interethnic problems (and in some cases, acute conflicts) continue to complicate the development of Romania, Bulgaria and especially Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Intensive migrations are closely related to interethnic problems and economic factors. Massive internal migration of the population was especially large in the first decade after the war (in Poland and Czechoslovakia, associated with the movement of Germans to Germany from the Polish reunified lands and border regions of the Czech Republic, as well as in Yugoslavia - from war-torn mountainous areas to the plains, etc.). Emigration also took place; in search of work, over 1 million people emigrated from Yugoslavia in the 60-80s (most to Germany and Austria) and slightly less from Poland; Some ethnic Turks emigrated from Bulgaria to Turkey, and most ethnic Germans from Romania (to Germany). Internal and external migrations of the population in the former Yugoslavia sharply increased in the early 90s as a result of acute ethnic conflicts; the bulk of them are refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Some of them sought to leave zones of interethnic conflicts, while others were subjected to forced relocation in order to achieve greater ethnic homogeneity of the population in certain areas (for example, the eviction of Serbs from Croatian Western Slavonia and Serbian Krajina or Croats from northern Bosnia and eastern Slavonia).
The situation was particularly difficult in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija (AK Kosovo for short) in southern Serbia. There, by the time of the collapse of Yugoslavia (1991), the population consisted of 82% Albanians, 11% Serbs and Montenegrins, 3% Muslim Slavs, as well as Gypsies, etc. The predominance of the Albanian population in Kosovo is the result of several processes.
First, after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, when Serbian forces suffered a fateful defeat at the hands of the Turks advancing in the Balkans, the Serbian population in Kosovo declined. Subsequent Serbian uprisings and wars between the Austrian and Turkish empires for possession of the Balkans were accompanied by the devastation of Serbian lands and the massive resettlement of Serbs across the Danube (especially at the end of the 17th century). Albanians gradually began to descend from the mountains to the devastated lands of Metohija and Kosovo with a rare Slavic population, who by the 18th century. Most of them were already converted to Islam. As a result of the First Balkan War, the Turks were expelled from most of the Balkan Peninsula. It was then, in 1913, that an independent Albanian state was created and the borders that still exist today were established with its neighbors - Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece.
During the Second World War, almost 100 thousand Serbs were expelled from Kosovo and Metohija in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. In their place, many Albanians were resettled from Albania, which was under the protectorate of fascist Italy. According to the 1948 census of Yugoslavia, 0.5 million Albanians (more than 2/3 of their population) already lived in Kosovo and Metohija.
In the SFRY, the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija was created as part of the Republic of Serbia. According to the new constitution of the country in 1974, the population of the region received even greater autonomy (its own government, parliament, judiciary, etc.). In AK Kosovo, despite the presence of broad autonomy, Albanian separatism and nationalism began to intensify. From 1968 to 1988, under pressure from Albanian nationalists, about 220 thousand Serbs and Montenegrins were forced to leave Kosovo.
Secondly, the Muslim Albanian population grew at a high rate as a result of large natural increase, which was several times higher than that of the Serbs and Montenegrins. In the 60s of the 20th century, AK Kosovo experienced a demographic explosion. Over 30 years (from 1961 to 1991), the Albanian population increased there due to natural growth by 2.5 times (from 0.6 to 1.6 million people). Such rapid growth entailed an aggravation of vital socio-economic problems in the region. Unemployment increased sharply, and the problem of land became more and more acute. Population density increased rapidly. From 1961 to 1991 it increased from 88 to 188 people per 1 km. sq. The territory of Kosovo and Metohija is the area with the highest population density in South-Eastern Europe. In such conditions, interethnic relations in the region worsened, and Albanian protests intensified, demanding that Kosovo be separated into a separate republic. The government of the SFRY was forced to introduce internal troops into AK Kosovo. In 1990, the Assembly (Parliament) of Serbia adopted a new constitution, according to which AK Kosovo loses the attributes of statehood, but retains the features of territorial autonomy. Albanians are holding a referendum on the issue of a “sovereign independent state of Kosovo,” terrorist acts are intensifying, and armed groups are being created.
In 1998, Albanian separatists create the “Kosovo Liberation Army” and move on to open military action against Serbian troops, seeking the internationalization of the “Kosovo issue.” They succeed in this, and after the failure of peace negotiations in France, at which the Yugoslav side was ready to grant Kosovo the broadest autonomy, in March 1999 the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by NATO aircraft began.
A new act of the Balkan drama, the Balkan crisis, has played out. NATO countries, instead of the stated purpose of the bombing - to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo - contributed to this catastrophe. In the month since the beginning (March 1999) of the NATO air operation against the SR Yugoslavia, Kosovo (according to the UN) more than 600 thousand ethnic Albanians were forced to leave. But the tragedy is that the armed conflict in Kosovo did not contribute one step to resolving the “Kosovo issue”; at the same time, it caused enormous damage to the population and national economy of the SR Yugoslavia.
Ultimately, the tragic events in the territory of the former Yugoslavia in the last decade of the 20th century are another stage in the struggle of NATO countries for dominant influence on the Balkan Peninsula.
Main features of the economy.
Most CEE countries (excluding Czechoslovakia) embarked on the path of capitalist development later than the leading countries of Western Europe and, on the eve of World War II, were classified as economically less developed European states. Their economy was dominated by extensive agriculture. During the Second World War, the countries of the region (especially Poland and Yugoslavia) suffered great material and human losses. After the war, as a result of political and socio-economic transformations, they switched to a centrally planned type of economy, in contrast to the market economy of Western European countries. Over almost half a century of development (from 1945 to 1989-1991), a specific type of economy was formed in the CEE countries, characterized by excessive centralization of management and monopolization of the social and economic spheres of life.
The level of their economic development has increased significantly; At the same time, there was a significant convergence of the levels of the countries in the region. During the ongoing industrialization, a new sectoral and territorial structure of the economy was formed with a predominance of industry, primarily its basic industries. A new production infrastructure was created, primarily in the field of energy and transport, and the involvement of the economy in foreign economic relations increased (especially significantly in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Slovenia). However, the achieved level of development was still significantly lower than that of the leading countries of Western Europe. At the same time, according to some quantitative indicators, there was a significant convergence of individual CEE countries with the countries of Western Europe (for example, in coal mining, electricity production, steel smelting and basic non-ferrous metals, production of mineral fertilizers, cement, textiles, footwear, as well as sugar, grain, etc. . per capita). However, a large gap has formed in the quality of products, in the degree of introduction of modern technologies and more economical production. The manufactured products, although they were sold in the countries of the region and especially in the huge but less demanding market of the USSR, were for the most part uncompetitive in Western markets. The accumulated shortcomings of a structural and technological nature (the predominance of industries weighed down by outdated equipment, increased material and energy intensity, etc.) led to an economic crisis in the 80s. The period of accelerated industrialization in the first post-war decades gave way to stagnation and then a decline in production. The beginning of the process of transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy with the replacement of the “transferable ruble” in foreign economic calculations with convertible currency and at world prices had dire consequences for the economies of most CEE countries. Integration economic ties between the CEE countries and the republics of the former USSR, on which their economic systems were basically closed, turned out to be largely destroyed. A radical restructuring of the entire national economy of Central and Eastern Europe was required on a new, market basis. Since the beginning of the 90s, the CEE countries have entered the stage of establishing a more efficient national economic structure, in which, in particular, the service sector is widely developed. The share of industry in GDP decreased from 45-60% in 1989 to 25-30% in 1998.
By the end of the 90s, some more developed CEE countries - Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary - were able to come closer to emerging from the crisis. Others (mainly the Balkan countries) were still far from this. But even the first group of countries continued to lag far behind the EU countries in terms of economic development, and it will probably take at least two decades to eliminate this backlog. Significant differences in the level of socio-economic development between different groups of countries in CEE itself can be judged by the following data: 5 of them (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia), which have more than 2/5 of the territory and half of the population of the CEE region , accounts for almost 3/4 of GDP and foreign trade turnover, as well as 9/10 of the volume of all foreign direct investment.
Industry.
In the CEE countries in the 50-80s, a large industrial potential was created, designed mainly to cover the needs of the region and close interaction with the national economy of the USSR, where a significant part of industrial products was sent. This direction of industrial development was reflected in the formation of an industry structure, which was distinguished by a number of features.
During industrialization, fuel, energy and metallurgical bases were created, which served as the basis for the development of the machine-building industry. It is mechanical engineering in almost all countries of the region (excluding Albania) that has become the leading industry and the main supplier of export products. The chemical industry, including organic synthesis, was almost re-created. The rapid development of mechanical engineering, chemistry and electric power contributed to the fact that their share in gross industrial output reached half. At the same time, the share of products from the light and food processing industries has decreased significantly.
Fuel and energy industry region was created based on the use of local resources (mostly in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania) and imported energy sources (mostly in Hungary, Bulgaria). In the total fuel and energy balance, the share of local resources ranged from 1/4 (Bulgaria, Hungary) to 3/4 (Poland, Romania). In accordance with the structure of local resources, most countries were characterized by a coal orientation with the widespread use of brown coals of low calorific value. This led to higher specific capital investments in the production of fuel and electricity and increased their cost.
CEE is one of the largest coal-producing regions in the world. In the second half of the 90s, more than 150 million tons of coal were mined there per year (130-135 in Poland and up to 20-25 in the Czech Republic). The CEE countries are the world's first region for brown coal production (about 230-250 million tons per year). But if the main mining of hard coal is concentrated in one basin (it is divided by the Polish-Czech border into two unequal parts - Upper Silesian and Ostrava-Karvinsky), then brown coal is mined in all countries, and from many deposits. More of it is mined in the Czech Republic and Poland (50–70 million tons each), Romania, S.R. Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria (30–40 million tons each). Brown coal (like a smaller part of hard coal) is consumed mainly at thermal power plants near mining sites. Significant fuel and electric energy complexes have been formed there - the main bases for electricity production. Among them, larger complexes are located in Poland (Upper Silesian, Belchatuvsky, Kujawsky, Bogatynsky), the Czech Republic (North Czech), Romania (Oltensky), Serbia (Belgrade and Kosovo), Bulgaria (East Maritsky). In Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Albania, the share of hydroelectric power plants in electricity production is high, and in Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia - gas stations. Some power plants also use natural gas (mostly imported from Russia, and local in Romania). Electricity production in the region reached 370 billion kWh per year in the 80s. Electricity consumption was significantly higher than production due to its systematic purchase in the former USSR (over 30 billion kWh per year), especially in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia.
CEE countries were highly connected to each othercovolt power lines and formed, together with the energy systems of Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, a single energy system. An oil refining industry has been created in CEE that is sufficient to meet the demand for petroleum productstah. It grew on the basis of large oil supplies inmainly from Russia, delivered via the systemoil pipeline "Druzhba" (to Poland, Slovakia, CheKhiyu, Hungary) and by sea from Novorossiysk (to Bolgariya). Hence the localization of larger refinerieson oil pipeline routes (Plock, Bratislava, Sashalombatta) or in seaports (Burgas, Nevoda-ri, Gdansk). These refineries (with a capacity of 8-13 million tons)served as the basis for the development of basic plants in the petrochemical industry of the respective countries. In the 90s, with a decrease in the villageoil prices from Russia and growth in imports from the statemember states of OPEC, CEE countries were forced to re-equip part of their refinery capacities, according topreviously built with Russian oil in mind.
Before World War II metallurgy Gia was represented mainly by ferrous metallurgy enterprises in the Czech and Polish lands, lead-zinc plants in southern Poland and copper smelting in Serbia (Bor). But in 1950-1980. New large ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy plants were built in the region. By the end of the 80s, the annual production of steel reached 55 million tons, copper - 750 thousand tons, aluminum - 800 thousand tons, lead and zinc - 350-400 thousand tons each. The main producers of iron and steel were Czechoslovakia and Poland and Romania. In each of them, large plants were built either on the basis of domestic coking coal (Poland, Czechoslovakia), or mainly imported (Romania), but all on imported iron ore. Therefore, they were built in the corresponding coal basins (Upper Silesian, Ostrava-Karvina) or on the routes for the import of iron-containing raw materials and coking coal from outside, in particular on the banks of the Danube (Galati and Calarasi in Romania, Dunaujvaros in Hungary and Smederevo in Serbia). By 1998, steel production had decreased to 35 million tons.
Non-ferrous metallurgy factories were created mainly on the local raw material base. This industry has received greater development in Poland (copper, zinc), the former Yugoslavia (copper, aluminum, lead and zinc), Bulgaria (lead, zinc, copper), Romania (aluminum). The copper smelting industry of Poland (reached level of over 400 thousand tons of copper) and the aluminum industry of a number of republics of the former Yugoslavia (300-350 thousand tons) have good prospects; There are significant reserves of high quality bauxite in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro. On their basis, aluminum smelters were built in the areas of Zadar (Croatia), Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Podgorica (Montenegro) and Kidricevo (Slovenia). But the largest aluminum smelter in the region operates in Slatina (in southern Romania), using domestic and imported raw materials. Yugoslavia and Hungary were suppliers of bauxite and alumina to other countries (Poland, Slovakia, Romania, but most of all to Russia).
The scale and structure of metallurgy significantly affected the nature and specialization of mechanical engineering. In particular, in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania its metal-intensive industries are more widely represented, and in the former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria - industries that use large quantities of non-ferrous metals (cable production, electrical engineering, material handling equipment).
The main specialization of mechanical engineering in CEE countries is the production of vehicles and agricultural machinery, machine tools and technological equipment, electrical products and instruments. Each country has developed a specialization aimed at covering the basic needs of the region itself and the former USSR. They specialized in the production of sea vessels primarily in Poland (especially fishing vessels), Croatia, locomotives, passenger and freight cars - Latvia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, buses - Hungary, minibuses - Latvia, electric cars and motorcycles - Bulgaria, excavators - Estonia, etc. .d.
Specialization was also great in the defense industry. Even as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, its main “arsenal” was the Czech Republic (especially the famous Skoda factories in Pilsen). The location of the newly created defense industry gravitated towards the “inland” regions of the countries, especially to the foothills and intermountain basins of the Carpathians, the Dinaric Highlands and Stara Planina.
In general, the location of mechanical engineering is characterized by a high concentration of enterprises within the center and north of the Czech lands, the Middle Danube valley (including Budapest) and its tributaries the Morava and Váh. In Poland, this industry is dispersed across large cities in the central part of the country (the main centers are Warsaw, Poznan, Wroclaw), as well as the Upper Silesian agglomeration. There are mechanical engineering centers in the Bucharest-Ploiesti-Brasov zone (Romania), as well as in the capital cities of Sofia, Belgrade and Zagreb.
From 1/3 to 1/2 of the country's mechanical engineering productsCEE was sent for export. At the same time, exchanging these products mainly withinCMEA member countries, countries of the region in the small hundredpenalties experienced the impact of the mainengine of scientific and technological progress in the world -competition. Low mutual demands, especially on product quality, led to the fact that in the transition to a market economyeconomy and inclusion in the world economya significant part of the machines and equipment producedproduction turned out to be uncompetitive. There was a large decline in production in the industry andAt the same time, imports of higher quality products increasedequipment from Western Europe, USA and JapanNI. Characteristic fact; Czech Republic -one of the countries with developed mechanical engineering, in whichsecond in the 80s machinery and equipment compositionaccounted for 55-57% of its exports and only about 1/3 of its imports, already in the early 90s it began to purchase muchmore machinery and equipment than selling them.A painful process of transformation takes placeof the entire machine-building complex of the countries of the regionshe, in the process of which hundreds of largeenterprises were on the verge of collapse and bankruptcy.It became faster than other countries to adapt to new conditions whenadapt to mechanical engineering of the Czech RepublicLiki, Poland and Hungary.
During the post-war period, CEE was essentially re-created chemical industry . At the first stage, when mainly large basic chemical enterprises were built (especially for the production of mineral fertilizers and chlorine-containing products), Poland and Romania, which had large reserves of the necessary raw materials, found themselves in a more favorable position. Later, as the organic synthesis industry developed, its production began to be created in other CEE countries, but mostly on the basis of oil and natural gas imported from Russia (and in Romania, their local resources) and coke chemistry (Poland, Czechoslovakia); specialization in the production of pharmaceutical products (especially Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria) and small-scale chemicals has increased.
The most important territorial groups of enterprises in the chemical and oil refining industry are tied, firstly, to the main coal mining basins (primarily the Upper Silesian and North Bohemian), where, in addition to coal chemistry, industries that used oil and petroleum products supplied through pipelines were later “pulled”; secondly, to the centers for refining imported oil that arose at the intersection of main oil pipelines with large rivers (Plock in Poland, Bratislava in Slovakia, Saskha-lombatta in Hungary, Pancevo in Serbia), as well as in seaports (Burgas in Bulgaria, Rijeka region in Croatia, Koper in Slovenia, Navodari in Romania, Gdansk V Poland); thirdly, to the sourcesnatural gas, or locally produced (Tran Sylvania in the center of Romania), or received through gas pipelines from Russia (Potisje in eastern Hungary, in the middle reaches of the Vistula in eastern Poland).
Lightweight industry satisfies the basic needs of the population in fabrics, clothing, shoes; a significant part of its products is exported. CEE countries occupy a prominent place in Europe in the production of cotton, wool and linen fabrics, leather shoes, as well as such specific products as costume jewelry, art glass and art ceramics (Czech Republic). The main areas of the textile industry historically developed in the center of Poland (Lodz) and on both sides of the Sudeten Mountains - in the south of Poland and in the north of the Czech Republic.
The region has a large shoe industry - in the 80s, over 500 million pairs of shoes were produced per year. It is more developed in Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Croatia. In particular, the Czech Republic is among the leading countries in the world in the production and export of footwear per capita. Well-known centers in the industry include Zlín (in the Czech Republic), Radom and Helmek (Poland), Timisoara and Cluj-Napoca (Romania), and Borovo and Zagreb (Croatia).
CEE has all the main branches of the food industry, but at the same time, each country specializes in the production of certain types of products in accordance with the nature of local agricultural raw materials and national customs in the consumption of certain food products. In the northern group of countries, the share of industries processing livestock products is much higher; Among products of plant origin, their share is high in the production of sugar and beer. Southern countries are distinguished by the production of vegetable oil, canned vegetables, grape wines, fermented tobacco and tobacco products. A significant part of these types of products from sub-sectors specialized in the north and south of the region is intended for export.
In the context of the transition to a market economy in CEE countries, the main changes in industry consist of a decrease in the share of basic industries (coal and ferrous metallurgy), as well as mechanical engineering. Particularly significant are intra-industry changes towards a reduction in production with increased energy and material intensity. A number of countries in the region receive loans from Western Europe for the purchase of high-tech equipment and the replacement of outdated production facilities with new ones, the products of which are in demand on the world market. Industrial modernization progressed more successfully in the 1990s in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. The most difficult situation in industry is in the republics of the former Yugoslavia (with the exception of Slovenia); they became embroiled in a decades-long conflict that greatly affected their economy.
Agriculture. Expanding agricultural production is one of the important areas of promising specialization for CEE countries. For this, the region has favorable soil and climatic conditions. During the post-war period, gross agricultural output increased significantly, and the yield of main crops and livestock productivity increased several times. But in terms of the general level of development, especially in terms of labor productivity, the agriculture of the CEE countries is still significantly inferior to that of Western Europe. In this regard, there are differences among individual CEE countries. For example, there is a high level of agriculture in the Czech Republic, Hungary and lower in the countries of the Balkan Peninsula and Poland. In general, the population of CEE is provided with basic agricultural products and a considerable part of them can be exported. In turn, the region, like Western Europe, needs to import tropical products and some types of agricultural raw materials (primarily cotton). In the process of transition to a market economy, CEE agriculture is increasingly encountering difficulties in selling products on Western markets in the context of the crisis of overproduction and intense competition existing there. At the same time, close to CEE there is an extensive Russian market, to which, on new, mutually beneficial terms, products that are in short supply for Russia are supplied in large quantities, primarily vegetables, fruits, grapes and processed goods.
The place of the CEE region in European agricultural production is determined mainly by the production of grain, potatoes, sugar beets, sunflowers, vegetables, fruits and meat and dairy products. In 1996-1998 CEE countries produced on average about 95 million tons of grain per year (almost 40% more than Russia, but half as much as Western European countries). Of this amount, the main grain crops - wheat, corn and barley - accounted for 33, 28 and 13 million tons, respectively. But there are large country-by-country differences in the composition of the dominant grain crops and the volume of their production. The largest grain producer, Poland (comparable in volume to the UK, but inferior to Ukraine) stands out for the production of wheat and rye. In the southern group of countries, along with wheat, a lot of corn is grown (primarily in Romania, Hungary and Serbia). It is this group of countries that, together with Denmark and France, stands out as having the largest grain production per capita in Europe. In the diet of the inhabitants of the southern group of countries, beans stand out, while in the northern group, especially in Poland, potatoes are prominent. Poland alone grew almost as much potatoes as Germany, France and Great Britain combined. In the Middle and Lower Danube plains within Hungary, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria, many sunflowers are grown; their lands produce more sunflower seeds than all of Western Europe (only Ukraine is a larger producer in Europe). In the northern group of countries (especially in Poland), another oilseed crop is widespread - rapeseed. Flax has been cultivated in the Baltic states and Poland for a long time. More sugar beets are also grown there, although this crop has become widespread in all CEE countries. This region is a major producer of vegetables, fruits and grapes, and in the southern countries, especially a lot of tomatoes and peppers, plums, peaches and grapes are grown, a significant part of which is intended for export, including to the northern part of the region.
During the post-war period, a significant increase in crop production and a change in its structure in favor of forage crops contributed to the development of livestock farming and an increase in the share of its products in total agricultural production. In Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, breeding cattle and pigs is of greater importance. They have higher slaughter weight of livestock and average milk yield. In the southern group of countries, the general level of livestock husbandry is lower, and pastoralism and sheep breeding are common.
Transport.
During the post-war period, transport work in the region grew faster than national income. This was due primarily to the high rate of industrialization, the expansion of mining and other basic heavy industries, and the increase in agricultural output; with the creation of industry in previously economically underdeveloped areas that were drawn into the sphere of territorial division of labor; with the transition of the industry to large-scale mass production and with the development of intra-industry specialization and cooperation of production, accompanied in many cases by the spatial division of the technological cycle; with the dynamic expansion of foreign trade exchanges within the region and especially with the former USSR, from where large flows of fuel and raw materials were sent. All this led to a manifold increase in the mass of transported goods, for which the road network created in the previous period was mainly used; This was especially true for its backbone - the railway network (the density of the railway network in CEE as a whole is much less than in Western Europe). In the 1980s, the density of freight transport by rail in the region was, however, much greater than in Western European countries. For this purpose, most of the main lines were modernized: transferred to electric and diesel traction. It was they who took over the main flows of cargo. At the same time, there were significant differences between countries. Along with the closure of a number of minor roads, new lines were built. The main ones: Upper Silesia - Warsaw, Belgrade - Bar (connected Serbia with Montenegro through the mountainous regions and provided Serbia with access to the sea), as well as broad gauge lines (as in the CIS countries): Vladimir-Volynsky - Dombrova-Gurnica and Uzhgorod - Kosice (for supplying Ukraine and Russia with iron ore raw materials to the metallurgy of Poland and Czechoslovakia) the creation of the Ilyichevsk - Varna sea ferry railway system was of great importance for speeding up and reducing the cost of transportation between Bulgaria and the USSR.
The road network was significantly expanded and improved. First-class highways appeared. Separate sections of the meridional North-South expressway are being built from the Baltic coast to the Aegean Sea and the Bosphorus Strait (Gdansk - Warsaw - Budapest - Belgrade - Sofia - Istanbul with a branch to Nis - Thessaloniki). The importance of the Moscow-Minsk-Warsaw-Berlin latitudinal highway is increasing. But in general, the CEE region continues to lag far behind Western Europe in terms of the level of development of the road network and road transport.
The CEE region has become an important link in the developing European pipeline transport system. It was on the route of the main flows of oil and natural gas from Russia to the EU countries. The creation of a network of main oil and gas pipelines made it possible to reduce the load on railway transport, the capacity of which was almost exhausted. The basis of the CEE pipeline network is oil and gas pipelines transporting fuel and raw materials from Russia. These pipelines transport a lot of natural gas in transit to other European countries. Thus, gas is transferred through the territory of Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary to Western European countries, and through Romania and Bulgaria to Greece and Turkey.
An urgent task of European cooperation in the field of transport is the development of a unified system of inland waterways of international importance. An important link in this system is the Rhine-Main-Danube waterway.
Complexes of hydraulic structures on thisthe paths are mostly completed. However, to ensuredevelopment of regular transportation of bulk cargo beforeIt’s worth “expanding” a few “bottleneck” places. One of them is the section of the Danube between Slovakia and Hungaryher, where during the period of shallow water (usually in the second halfbecause of the summer) the passage of loaded ships is difficult.In order to improve navigation conditions onIn this area, it was decided to build a joint hydro complex Gabcikovo - Nagymaros. Shortly before the completion date of this large structureHungary refused to continue it in 1989(for environmental and political reasons).Unfortunately, the political situation putsthere are many slingshots on the path of pan-European integrationtions. Another example: stopping regularshipping on the Danube in 1994 as a consequence of economic blockade of the Federal Republic of Southglory from the UN. The most difficult sectionfor navigation on the Danube, until the early 70s, the area of the Cataract gorge between the spurs of the Southernthe Carpathians from the north (Romania) and the spurs of the East Serbian Mountains from the south (Serbia); joint wuxitwo countries were built therehydraulic complex - "Iron Gates"I" and "Ironnew gateII» with the largest locks in Europeand dam hydroelectric stations (powerHPP "Iron Gate"I» more than 2 million kW).
Maritime transport in CEE countries plays an important role in foreign trade transport, but in general its importance in the transport system of most countries in the region is much less than that of Western European countries. Naturally, in the economy of coastal countries: Poland (port complexes of Gdynia - Gdansk and Szczecin - Swinoujscie), Romania (Constanza - Adzhidzha complex), Bulgaria (ports of Varna and Burgas) and Croatia (main port of Rijeka), ports play an important role.
External economic relations CEE countries in the 60-80s were decisive in the formation of the Eastern European integration region, which included the former USSR. More than 3/5 of the foreign trade turnover of the CEE countries accounted for mutual supplies within the member countries of the former Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. The reorientation of the political and economic development of the CEE countries led in the 90s to changes in their traditional economic ties. The old ties were largely destroyed, and new ones were difficult to establish in the conditions of a large decline in production in the first half of the 90s. Nevertheless, the geographic focus of economic relations between the CEE countries has changed towards primarily Western Europe. Transformations in CEE contribute to the penetration of Western European products and capital into the capacious Eastern European market. At the same time, traditional products from CEE countries find it difficult to make their way to the West in the face of fierce competition. These countries provided only 4% of EU countries' imports at the end of the 90s. CEE's turn to the West did not bring it the expected quick results in reconstruction and economic growth. It became obvious that the long-term development of the economic complexes of the CEE countries should be based on the objective need to combine broad ties with both the West and the East. Efforts are being made to partially restore ties with Russia, Ukraine and other republics of the former USSR on a mutually beneficial basis. The main part - 4/5 of the foreign trade turnover of CEE countries is realized within Europe. At the end of the 90s, about 70% of CEE’s foreign trade was carried out with EU countries (the main ones among them are Germany, Italy, and Austria). Mutual trade within the region is also intensifying.
Domestic and foreign service sectortourism has become an industry that provides the countries of the region with significant income. Tourism participates in the formation of the territorial structure innative economy in a number of regions of the CBE countries. Thisprimarily the Adriatic coast of Croatia,Montenegro and Albania; Black Sea coastBulgaria and Romania; Lake Balaton in Hungary.Tourism contributes relatively little to the risedeveloped mountainous regions of Slovakia, Slovenia,Poland, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria. However, its seasonality leads to large fluctuations in employmentof the population in the off-season. At weakeninguse of recreational areas, especiallyforeign tourists, is strongly reflected inpolitical and economic instability. An example of this is the difficult situation that has developed infirst half of the 90s on the Adriaticresorts in Croatia and Montenegro.
In the future, the CEE region will participate in the pan-European and world markets as a consumer primarily of high-tech equipment, energy resources (primarily oil and gas), industrial raw materials and a supplier of competitive types of products from mechanical engineering, non-ferrous metallurgy, pharmaceuticals, and food products. The foreign trade deficit in the balance of payments, characteristic of CEE countries, is partially covered by income from transit transportation, remittances from citizens temporarily working in other countries, and from international tourism.
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The composition and nature of the geographical distribution of mineral resources in countries are determined by the peculiarities of geological and tectonic structures. The greatest economic importance are large (on a European scale) deposits: hard coal (Upper Silesian basin in southern Poland and the adjacent Ostrava-Karvinsky basin in the north-east of the Czech Republic), brown coal (Serbia, Poland, Czech Republic), oil and natural gas ( Romania, Albania), oil shale (Estonia), rock salt (Poland, Romania), phosphorites (Estonia), natural sulfur (Poland), lead-zinc ores (Poland, Serbia), bauxite (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary) , chromite and nickel (Albania); In a number of countries there are deposits of uranium ores of industrial importance.
In general, CEE countries are insufficiently provided with primary energy resources. Up to 9/10 of the region's coal reserves (about 70 billion tons) are in Poland alone. CEE contains over 1/3 of the pan-European reserves of brown coal; they are more dispersed across the countries of the region, but still more than half lie in Serbia and Poland. No country (except Albania) has sufficient oil and natural gas reserves. Even Romania, which is better supplied with them, is forced to partially cover its needs for them through imports. Of the total hydro potential of CEE of 182 billion kWh, about half is in the republics of the former Yugoslavia (primarily Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina) and more than 20% in Romania. The region is rich in healing mineral springs, some of which are effectively used (especially in the Czech Republic).
CEE countries vary greatly in the size, composition and quality of forest resources. In the south of the region, the mountainous regions of the Balkan Peninsula, as well as the Carpathians, are characterized by increased forest cover with a predominance of coniferous species and beech, while in the predominantly flat and heavily cultivated Poland and Hungary, the forest supply is much less. In Poland and the Czech Republic, a significant part of productive forests is represented by artificial plantations, primarily pine trees.
However, the main wealth of CEE is its soil and climatic resources. There are large areas of naturally fertile soils, mostly of the chernozem type. These are primarily the Lower and Middle Danube Plains, as well as the Upper Thracian Lowland. Due to the extensiveness of agriculture before the Second World War, about 10 - 15 quintals were collected here. with hectares Cereal crops. IN
In the 80s, the yield had already reached 35 - 45 c. per hectare, but was still lower than the yields in some Western European countries with lands less rich in humus.
Based on soil and climatic conditions and other natural resources, CEE countries can be conditionally divided into two groups: northern (Baltic countries, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia) and southern (rest of the countries). These differences, consisting of higher temperatures during the growing season and more fertile soils in the southern group of countries, create an objective basis for the specialization and complementarity of both groups of countries in agricultural production. While most of the territory of the northern group of countries is located in a zone of sufficient moisture, in the southern group - during the growing season, arid conditions often arise, causing the need for artificial irrigation (In the Lower Danube and Middle Danube lowlands, in the second half of the 20th century, one of the most irrigated areas in Europe arose agriculture). At the same time, the climatic conditions of the southern group of countries, combined with healing mineral springs and wide access to warm seas, create important prerequisites for organizing recreation for residents of not only these countries, but also the northern part of the region, as well as tourists from other, primarily European, countries.
Population.
The population dynamics of CEE are characterized by a number of features characteristic of the European continent as a whole: a decrease in the birth rate, an aging population and, accordingly, an increase in the mortality rate. At the same time, the CEE region, in contrast to Western Europe, is also characterized by a significant population decline due to a negative balance of migration. In the second half of the 90s, the average population density of CEE (104 people per 1 sq. km.) was close to that in Western Europe. Country-by-country differences in population density range from 33 in Estonia to 131. At 1 km. sq. in the Czech Republic. There are more significant differences in population density within countries, due to both natural conditions and socio-economic factors. The process of urbanization had a great influence. For most CEE countries, in contrast to the developed countries of Western Europe, the stage of accelerated industrialization and, accordingly, increased concentration of production in cities occurred at a later time, mainly after the Second World War. Therefore, the rate of urbanization during this period was the highest. By the beginning of the 90s, more than 2/3 of the region’s population was already concentrated in cities (in Czechoslovakia up to 4/5). There are few large cities compared to Western Europe. Capital cities stand out sharply, among which the largest two million people are Budapest and Bucharest, and some urban agglomerations (Upper Silesian).
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Territory. Natural conditions and resources
The Central-Eastern Europe (CEE) region covers 15 post-socialist countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic (the Czech Republic includes the territory of the historical regions of the Czech Republic, Moravia and a small part of Silesia), Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Federation Serbia and Montenegro (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania. The area of the region, representing a single territorial massif, is over 1.3 million sq. km. with a population of 130 million people. (1998). Of its constituent countries, only Poland and Romania are included in the group of larger European states; the rest of the countries are relatively small in size (territory from 20 to 110 thousand square kilometers with a population of 2 to 10 million people).
This region of Europe has gone through a difficult path of political and socio-economic development in the context of a dramatic struggle for the peoples inhabiting it by the largest European powers for spheres of influence on the continent. This struggle was waged with particular force in the 19th-20th centuries. between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, Turkey, as well as France and Great Britain. During this struggle and the intensified national liberation movements of the local population, former states were formed and destroyed. After the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, Poland reappeared on the map of Europe, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were formed, and the territory of Romania more than doubled.
Subsequent changes in the political map of CEE were the result of the victory over fascist Germany and Italy during the Second World War. The most important of them: the return to Poland of its western and northern lands with wide access to the Baltic Sea, Yugoslavia - the Julian Region and the Istrian Peninsula, inhabited mainly by Slovenes and Croats.
During the transition of CEE countries from a centrally planned economy to a market economy (late 80s - early 90s), political, socio-economic and national-ethnic contradictions sharply worsened. As a result, Czechoslovakia split along ethnic lines into two states - the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, and Yugoslavia - into five states: the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the republics of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The CEE countries are located between the countries of Western Europe and the republics that were (until 1992) part of the USSR. This is associated with a number of common features of their political and socio-economic development at the stage of transition to a market economy. They are in the process of deep structural economic restructuring, fundamental changes in the nature and direction of foreign economic relations.
The CEE states are striving to expand their participation in pan-European economic integration, primarily in the fields of transport, energy, ecology, and the use of recreational resources. The region has access to the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas, and the navigable Danube flows through it for a long distance; the region's territory can be widely used for the transit of goods and passengers between Western Europe, the CIS countries and Asia. For example, with the completion in 1993 of the Bamberg (on the Main River) - Regensburg (on the Danube River) canal, the possibility of end-to-end trans-European water transport between the North and Black Seas opens up (from Rotterdam at the mouth of the Rhine to Sulina at the mouth of the Danube, a waterway of 3,400 km.) . This is an important link in the development of a unified European network of inland waterways. Another example of the expanding use of the geographical location of the CEE countries is transit shipments through pipelines of natural gas and oil from Russia and other Caspian states to the countries of Western and Southern Europe. The CEE countries signed the European Energy Charter in 1994, which laid down the economic mechanisms for the global energy space throughout Europe.
When assessing natural resources, settlement patterns and regional differences in economic activities on the modern territory of the CEE countries, one needs to imagine the most important structural and morphological features of its relief. The region covers: part of the European Plain in the north (Baltic States, Poland), Hercynian midlands and hilly uplands (Czech Republic), part of Alpine-Carpathian Europe with folded mountains up to 2.5 - 3 thousand m high and low accumulative plains - Middle and Lower -Danube (Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, northern Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria), the southern European Dinaric and Rhodope-Macedonian massifs up to 2 - 2.5 thousand meters high with intermountain basins and foothill plains (most of Croatia and Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania and southern Bulgaria).
The composition and nature of the geographical distribution of mineral resources in countries are determined by the peculiarities of geological and tectonic structures. The greatest economic importance are large (on a European scale) deposits: hard coal (Upper Silesian basin in southern Poland and the adjacent Ostrava-Karvinsky basin in the north-east of the Czech Republic), brown coal (Serbia, Poland, Czech Republic), oil and natural gas ( Romania, Albania), oil shale (Estonia), rock salt (Poland, Romania), phosphorites (Estonia), natural sulfur (Poland), lead-zinc ores (Poland, Serbia), bauxite (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary) , chromite and nickel (Albania); In a number of countries there are deposits of uranium ores of industrial importance.
In general, CEE countries are insufficiently provided with primary energy resources. Up to 9/10 of the region's coal reserves (about 70 billion tons) are in Poland alone. CEE contains over 1/3 of the pan-European reserves of brown coal; they are more dispersed across the countries of the region, but still more than half lie in Serbia and Poland. No country (except Albania) has sufficient oil and natural gas reserves. Even Romania, which is better supplied with them, is forced to partially cover its needs for them through imports. Of the total hydro potential of CEE of 182 billion kWh, about half is in the republics of the former Yugoslavia (primarily Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina) and more than 20% in Romania. The region is rich in healing mineral springs, some of which are effectively used (especially in the Czech Republic).
CEE countries vary greatly in the size, composition and quality of forest resources. In the south of the region, the mountainous regions of the Balkan Peninsula, as well as the Carpathians, are characterized by increased forest cover with a predominance of coniferous species and beech, while in the predominantly flat and heavily cultivated Poland and Hungary, the forest supply is much less. In Poland and the Czech Republic, a significant part of productive forests is represented by artificial plantations, primarily pine trees.
However, one of the main assets of CEE is its soil and climatic resources. There are large areas of naturally fertile soils, mostly of the chernozem type. These are primarily the Lower and Middle Danube Plains, as well as the Upper Thracian Lowland. Due to the extensiveness of agriculture before the Second World War, about 10 - 15 quintals were collected here. with hectares Cereal crops. IN
In the 80s, the yield had already reached 35 - 45 c. per hectare, but was still lower than the yields in some Western European countries with lands less rich in humus.
Based on soil and climatic conditions and other natural resources, CEE countries can be conditionally divided into two groups: northern (Baltic countries, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia) and southern (rest of the countries). These differences, consisting of higher temperatures during the growing season and more fertile soils in the southern group of countries, create an objective basis for the specialization and complementarity of both groups of countries in agricultural production. While most of the territory of the northern group of countries is in a zone of sufficient moisture, in the southern group, dry conditions often arise during the growing season, causing the need for artificial irrigation (In the Lower Danube and Middle Danube lowlands, in the second half of the 20th century, one of the most irrigated areas in Europe arose agriculture). At the same time, the climatic conditions of the southern group of countries, combined with healing mineral springs and wide access to warm seas, create important prerequisites for organizing recreation for residents of not only these countries, but also the northern part of the region, as well as tourists from other, primarily European, countries.
Population
The population dynamics of CEE are characterized by a number of features characteristic of the European continent as a whole: a decrease in the birth rate, an aging population and, accordingly, an increase in the mortality rate. At the same time, the CEE region, in contrast to Western Europe, is also characterized by a significant population decline due to a negative balance of migration. In the second half of the 90s, the average population density of CEE (104 people per 1 sq. km.) was close to that in Western Europe. Country-by-country differences in population density range from 33 in Estonia to 131. At 1 km. sq. in the Czech Republic. There are more significant differences in population density within countries, due to both natural conditions and socio-economic factors. The process of urbanization had a great influence. For most CEE countries, in contrast to the developed countries of Western Europe, the stage of accelerated industrialization and, accordingly, increased concentration of production in cities occurred at a later time, mainly after the Second World War. Therefore, the rate of urbanization during this period was the highest. By the beginning of the 90s, more than 2/3 of the region’s population was already concentrated in cities (in Czechoslovakia up to 4/5). There are few large cities compared to Western Europe. Capital cities stand out sharply, among which the largest two million people are Budapest and Bucharest, and some urban agglomerations (Upper Silesian).
An unfavorable demographic situation (for a number of years, mortality has exceeded birth rates) is especially characteristic of Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Croatia. The situation is somewhat better in Poland, Romania and Slovakia, where in the 90s there was still natural population growth. It is still high in Albania. But within a number of countries there are large regional differences in natural growth, depending on the national composition and religious characteristics of individual population groups. In some areas of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Bulgaria, where significant Muslim groups live, the natural increase is much higher. The consequence of this is a change between the population of different nationalities within each of these countries in favor of representatives of peoples professing predominantly Islam.
For example, in the former Yugoslavia, during the period between the population censuses of 1961 and 1991. due to higher natural population growth, the number of Albanians increased from 0.9 to 2.2 million people and Muslim Slavs (primarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina) from 1 to 2.3 million people. Mainly for this reason and partly due to migration, there have been great changes in the structure of the national composition of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the share of Serbs from 1961 to 1991 decreased from 43 to 31%, and the share of Muslims increased from 26 to 44%)
After the Second World War, in contrast to Western Europe, the homogeneity of the national composition of the population of a number of CEE countries increased significantly. Before the war, in the countries of the region as a whole, national minorities exceeded a quarter of the total population, but, for example, by 1960 they constituted only about 7%. At the same time, the following stood out: single-national countries with a very small proportion of national minorities - Poland, Hungary, Albania; single-national countries with significant groups of national minorities - Bulgaria (ethnic Turks, Gypsies), Romania (Hungarians, Germans, Gypsies); binational countries - Czechoslovakia, inhabited by Czechs and Slovaks, historically associated with a certain territory, moreover, in Slovakia there were also significant minorities - Hungarians and Gypsies; finally, multinational countries - Yugoslavia. The latter was mainly (84% according to the 1991 census) populated by South Slavic peoples, but in some of its republics, primarily Serbia, there were significant groups of national minorities (Albanians and Hungarians).
In the process of aggravation of the political and socio-economic situation in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 80s - early 90s, interethnic contradictions intensified. This led to the collapse of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The Czech Republic and Slovenia have now joined the first group of co-ethnic minorities. At the same time, interethnic problems (and in some cases, acute conflicts) continue to complicate the development of Romania, Bulgaria and especially Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Intensive migrations are closely related to interethnic problems and economic factors. Massive internal migration of the population was especially large in the first decade after the war (in Poland and Czechoslovakia, associated with the movement of Germans to Germany from the Polish reunified lands and border regions of the Czech Republic, as well as in Yugoslavia - from war-torn mountainous areas to the plains, etc.). Emigration also took place; in search of work, over 1 million people emigrated from Yugoslavia in the 60-80s (most to Germany and Austria) and slightly less from Poland; Some ethnic Turks emigrated from Bulgaria to Turkey, and most ethnic Germans from Romania (to Germany). Internal and external migrations of the population in the former Yugoslavia sharply increased in the early 90s as a result of acute ethnic conflicts; the bulk of them are refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Some of them sought to leave zones of interethnic conflicts, while others were subjected to forced relocation in order to achieve greater ethnic homogeneity of the population in certain areas (for example, the eviction of Serbs from Croatian Western Slavonia and Serbian Krajina or Croats from northern Bosnia and eastern Slavonia).
The situation was particularly difficult in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija (AK Kosovo for short) in southern Serbia. There, by the time of the collapse of Yugoslavia (1991), the population consisted of 82% Albanians, 11% Serbs and Montenegrins, 3% Muslim Slavs, as well as Gypsies, etc. The predominance of the Albanian population in Kosovo is the result of several processes.
First, after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, when Serbian forces suffered a fateful defeat at the hands of the Turks advancing in the Balkans, the Serbian population in Kosovo declined. Subsequent Serbian uprisings and wars between the Austrian and Turkish empires for possession of the Balkans were accompanied by the devastation of Serbian lands and the massive resettlement of Serbs across the Danube (especially at the end of the 17th century). Albanians gradually began to descend from the mountains to the devastated lands of Metohija and Kosovo with a rare Slavic population, who by the 18th century. Most of them were already converted to Islam. As a result of the First Balkan War, the Turks were expelled from most of the Balkan Peninsula. It was then, in 1913, that an independent Albanian state was created and the borders that still exist today were established with its neighbors - Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece.
During the Second World War, almost 100 thousand Serbs were expelled from Kosovo and Metohija in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. In their place, many Albanians were resettled from Albania, which was under the protectorate of fascist Italy. According to the 1948 census of Yugoslavia, 0.5 million Albanians (more than 2/3 of their population) already lived in Kosovo and Metohija.
In the SFRY, the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija was created as part of the Republic of Serbia. According to the new constitution of the country in 1974, the population of the region received even greater autonomy (its own government, parliament, judiciary, etc.). In AK Kosovo, despite the presence of broad autonomy, Albanian separatism and nationalism began to intensify. From 1968 to 1988, under pressure from Albanian nationalists, about 220 thousand Serbs and Montenegrins were forced to leave Kosovo.
Secondly, the Muslim Albanian population grew at a high rate as a result of large natural increase, which was several times higher than that of the Serbs and Montenegrins. In the 60s of the 20th century, AK Kosovo experienced a demographic explosion. Over 30 years (from 1961 to 1991), the Albanian population increased there due to natural growth by 2.5 times (from 0.6 to 1.6 million people). Such rapid growth entailed an aggravation of vital socio-economic problems in the region. Unemployment increased sharply, and the problem of land became more and more acute. Population density increased rapidly. From 1961 to 1991 it increased from 88 to 188 people per 1 km. sq. The territory of Kosovo and Metohija is the area with the highest population density in South-Eastern Europe. In such conditions, interethnic relations in the region worsened, and Albanian protests intensified, demanding that Kosovo be separated into a separate republic. The government of the SFRY was forced to introduce internal troops into AK Kosovo. In 1990, the Assembly (Parliament) of Serbia adopted a new constitution, according to which AK Kosovo loses the attributes of statehood, but retains the features of territorial autonomy. Albanians are holding a referendum on the issue of a “sovereign independent state of Kosovo,” terrorist acts are intensifying, and armed groups are being created.
In 1998, Albanian separatists create the “Kosovo Liberation Army” and move on to open military action against Serbian troops, seeking the internationalization of the “Kosovo issue.” They succeed in this, and after the failure of peace negotiations in France, at which the Yugoslav side was ready to grant Kosovo the broadest autonomy, in March 1999 the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by NATO aircraft began.
A new act of the Balkan drama, the Balkan crisis, has played out. NATO countries, instead of the stated purpose of the bombing - to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo - contributed to this catastrophe. In the month since the beginning (March 1999) of the NATO air operation against the SR Yugoslavia, Kosovo (according to the UN) more than 600 thousand ethnic Albanians were forced to leave. But the tragedy is that the armed conflict in Kosovo did not contribute one step to resolving the “Kosovo issue”; at the same time, it caused enormous damage to the population and national economy of the SR Yugoslavia.
Ultimately, the tragic events in the territory of the former Yugoslavia in the last decade of the 20th century are another stage in the struggle of NATO countries for dominant influence on the Balkan Peninsula.
Main features of the farm
Most CEE countries (excluding Czechoslovakia) embarked on the path of capitalist development later than the leading countries of Western Europe and, on the eve of World War II, were classified as economically less developed European states. Their economy was dominated by extensive agriculture. During the Second World War, the countries of the region (especially Poland and Yugoslavia) suffered great material and human losses. After the war, as a result of political and socio-economic transformations, they switched to a centrally planned type of economy, in contrast to the market economy of Western European countries. Over almost half a century of development (from 1945 to 1989-1991), a specific type of economy was formed in the CEE countries, characterized by excessive centralization of management and monopolization of the social and economic spheres of life.
The level of their economic development has increased significantly; At the same time, there was a significant convergence of the levels of the countries in the region. During the ongoing industrialization, a new sectoral and territorial structure of the economy was formed with a predominance of industry, primarily its basic industries. A new production infrastructure was created, primarily in the field of energy and transport, and the involvement of the economy in foreign economic relations increased (especially significantly in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Slovenia). However, the achieved level of development was still significantly lower than that of the leading countries of Western Europe. At the same time, according to some quantitative indicators, there was a significant convergence of individual CEE countries with the countries of Western Europe (for example, in coal mining, electricity production, steel smelting and basic non-ferrous metals, production of mineral fertilizers, cement, textiles, footwear, as well as sugar, grain, etc. . per capita). However, a large gap has formed in the quality of products, in the degree of introduction of modern technologies and more economical production. The manufactured products, although they were sold in the countries of the region and especially in the huge but less demanding market of the USSR, were for the most part uncompetitive in Western markets. The accumulated shortcomings of a structural and technological nature (the predominance of industries weighed down by outdated equipment, increased material and energy intensity, etc.) led to an economic crisis in the 80s. The period of accelerated industrialization in the first post-war decades gave way to stagnation and then a decline in production. The beginning of the process of transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy with the replacement of the “transferable ruble” in foreign economic calculations with convertible currency and at world prices had dire consequences for the economies of most CEE countries. Integration economic ties between the CEE countries and the republics of the former USSR, on which their economic systems were basically closed, turned out to be largely destroyed. A radical restructuring of the entire national economy of Central and Eastern Europe was required on a new, market basis. Since the beginning of the 90s, the CEE countries have entered the stage of establishing a more efficient national economic structure, in which, in particular, the service sector is widely developed. The share of industry in GDP decreased from 45-60% in 1989 to 25-30% in 1998.
By the end of the 90s, some more developed CEE countries - Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary - were able to come closer to emerging from the crisis. Others (mainly the Balkan countries) were still far from this. But even the first group of countries continued to lag far behind the EU countries in terms of economic development, and it will probably take at least two decades to eliminate this backlog. Significant differences in the level of socio-economic development between different groups of countries in CEE itself can be judged by the following data: 5 of them (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia), which have more than 2/5 of the territory and half of the population of the CEE region , accounts for almost 3/4 of GDP and foreign trade turnover, as well as 9/10 of the volume of all foreign direct investment.
Industry
In the CEE countries in the 50-80s, a large industrial potential was created, designed mainly to cover the needs of the region and close interaction with the national economy of the USSR, where a significant part of industrial products was sent. This direction of industrial development was reflected in the formation of an industry structure, which was distinguished by a number of features.
During industrialization, fuel, energy and metallurgical bases were created, which served as the basis for the development of the machine-building industry. It is mechanical engineering in almost all countries of the region (excluding Albania) that has become the leading industry and the main supplier of export products. The chemical industry, including organic synthesis, was almost re-created. The rapid development of mechanical engineering, chemistry and electric power contributed to the fact that their share in gross industrial output reached half. At the same time, the share of products from the light and food processing industries has decreased significantly.
The fuel and energy industry of the region was created on the basis of the use of local resources (mostly in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania) and imported energy sources (mostly in Hungary, Bulgaria). In the total fuel and energy balance, the share of local resources ranged from 1/4 (Bulgaria, Hungary) to 3/4 (Poland, Romania). In accordance with the structure of local resources, most countries were characterized by a coal orientation with the widespread use of brown coals of low calorific value. This led to higher specific capital investments in the production of fuel and electricity and increased their cost.
CEE is one of the largest coal-mining regions in the world. In the second half of the 90s, more than 150 million tons of coal were mined there per year (130-135 in Poland and up to 20-25 in the Czech Republic). The CEE countries are the world's first region for brown coal production (about 230-250 million tons per year). But if the main production of hard coal is concentrated in one basin (it is divided by the Polish-Czech border into two unequal parts - Upper Silesian and Ostrava-Karvinsky), then brown coal is mined in all countries, and from many deposits. More of it is mined in the Czech Republic and Poland (50-70 million tons each), Romania, S.R. Yugoslavia and Bulgaria (30-40 million tons each). Brown coal (like a smaller part of hard coal) is consumed mainly at thermal power plants near mining sites. Significant fuel and electric energy complexes have been formed there - the main bases for the production of electricity. Among them, larger complexes are located in Poland (Upper Silesian, Belchatuvsky, Kujawsky, Bogatynsky), the Czech Republic (North Czech), Romania (Oltensky), Serbia (Belgrade and Kosovo), Bulgaria (East Maritsky). In Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Albania, the share of hydroelectric power plants in electricity production is high, and in Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia - gas stations. Some power plants also use natural gas (mostly imported from Russia, and local in Romania). Electricity production in the region reached 370 billion kWh per year in the 80s. Electricity consumption was significantly higher than production due to its systematic purchase in the former USSR (over 30 billion kWh per year), especially in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia.
The CEE countries were connected to each other by high-voltage power lines and, together with the power systems of Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, formed a single power system. In CEE, an oil refining industry has been created that is sufficient to meet the needs for petroleum products. It grew on the basis of large oil supplies mainly from Russia, delivered via the Druzhba oil pipeline system (to Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary) and by sea from Novorossiysk (to Bulgaria). Hence the localization of larger refineries on oil pipeline routes (Plock, Bratislava, Sashalombatta) or in seaports (Burgas, Nevodra, Gdansk). These refineries (with a capacity of 8-13 million tons) served as the basis for the development of basic petrochemical plants in the respective countries. In the 90s, with a decrease in oil supplies from Russia and an increase in imports from OPEC member states, CEE countries were forced to re-equip some of the capacities of refineries that had previously been built with Russian oil in mind.
Before World War II, metallurgy was represented mainly by iron and steel enterprises in the Czech and Polish lands, lead-zinc plants in southern Poland and copper smelting in Serbia (Bor). But in 1950-1980. New large ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy plants were built in the region. By the end of the 80s, the annual production of steel reached 55 million tons, copper - 750 thousand tons, aluminum - 800 thousand tons, lead and zinc - 350-400 thousand tons each. The main producers of iron and steel were Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania. In each of them, large plants were built either on the basis of domestic coking coal (Poland, Czechoslovakia), or mainly imported (Romania), but all on imported iron ore. Therefore, they were built in the corresponding coal basins (Upper Silesian, Ostrava-Karvina) or on the routes for the import of iron-containing raw materials and coking coal from outside, in particular on the banks of the Danube (Galati and Calarasi in Romania, Dunaujvaros in Hungary and Smederevo in Serbia). By 1998, steel production had decreased to 35 million tons.
Non-ferrous metallurgy factories were created mainly on the local raw material base. This industry has received greater development in Poland (copper, zinc), the former Yugoslavia (copper, aluminum, lead and zinc), Bulgaria (lead, zinc, copper), Romania (aluminum). The copper smelting industry of Poland (reached level of over 400 thousand tons of copper) and the aluminum industry of a number of republics of the former Yugoslavia (300-350 thousand tons) have good prospects; There are significant reserves of high quality bauxite in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro. On their basis, aluminum smelters were built in the areas of Zadar (Croatia), Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Podgorica (Montenegro) and Kidricevo (Slovenia). But the largest aluminum smelter in the region operates in Slatina (in southern Romania), using domestic and imported raw materials. Yugoslavia and Hungary were suppliers of bauxite and alumina to other countries (Poland, Slovakia, Romania, but most of all to Russia).
The scale and structure of metallurgy significantly affected the nature and specialization of mechanical engineering. In particular, in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania its metal-intensive industries are more widely represented, and in the former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria - industries that use large quantities of non-ferrous metals (cable production, electrical engineering, material handling equipment).
The main specialization of mechanical engineering in CEE countries is the production of vehicles and agricultural machinery, machine tools and technological equipment, electrical products and instruments. Each country has developed a specialization aimed at covering the basic needs of the region itself and the former USSR. First of all, Poland (especially fishing vessels), Croatia specialized in the production of sea vessels, locomotives, passenger and freight cars - Latvia, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, buses - Hungary, minibuses - Latvia, electric cars and motorcycles - Bulgaria, excavators -- Estonia, etc.
Specialization was also great in the defense industry. Even as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, its main “arsenal” was the Czech Republic (especially the famous Skoda factories in Pilsen). The location of the newly created defense industry gravitated towards the “inland” regions of the countries, especially to the foothills and intermountain basins of the Carpathians, the Dinaric Highlands and Stara Planina.
In general, the location of mechanical engineering is characterized by a high concentration of enterprises within the center and north of the Czech lands, the Middle Danube valley (including Budapest) and its tributaries the Morava and Váh. In Poland, this industry is dispersed across large cities in the central part of the country (the main centers are Warsaw, Poznan, Wroclaw), as well as the Upper Silesian agglomeration. There are mechanical engineering centers in the Bucharest - Ploiesti - Brasov zone (Romania), as well as in the capital cities - Sofia, Belgrade and Zagreb.
From 1/3 to 1/2 of mechanical engineering products of CEE countries were exported. At the same time, exchanging these products mainly within the CMEA member countries, the countries of the region were to a small extent affected by the main engine of scientific and technological progress in the world - competition. Low mutual demands, especially on product quality, led to the fact that in the conditions of the transition to a market economy and inclusion in the world economy, a significant part of the machinery and equipment produced turned out to be uncompetitive. There was a large decline in production in the industry and at the same time there was an increase in the import of higher quality equipment from Western Europe, the USA and Japan. Characteristic fact; The Czech Republic is one of the countries with developed mechanical engineering, in which in the 80s machinery and equipment accounted for 55-57% of its exports and only about 1/3 of imports; already in the early 90s it began to purchase much more machinery and equipment than to sell them. There is a painful process of transformation of the entire machine-building complex of the countries of the region, during which hundreds of large enterprises found themselves on the verge of collapse and bankruptcy. The mechanical engineering industry of the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary began to adapt to new conditions faster than other countries.
During the post-war period, the chemical industry was essentially re-created in CEE. At the first stage, when mainly large basic chemical enterprises were built (especially for the production of mineral fertilizers and chlorine-containing products), Poland and Romania, which had large reserves of the necessary raw materials, found themselves in a more favorable position. Later, as the organic synthesis industry developed, its production began to be created in other CEE countries, but mostly on the basis of oil and natural gas imported from Russia (and in Romania, their local resources) and coke chemistry (Poland, Czechoslovakia); specialization in the production of pharmaceutical products (especially Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria) and small-scale chemicals has increased.
The most important territorial groups of enterprises in the chemical and oil refining industry are tied, firstly, to the main coal mining basins (primarily the Upper Silesian and North Bohemian), where, in addition to coal chemistry, industries that used oil and petroleum products supplied through pipelines were later “pulled”; secondly, to the centers for refining imported oil that arose at the intersection of main oil pipelines with large rivers (Plock in Poland, Bratislava in Slovakia, Saskha-lombatta in Hungary, Pancevo in Serbia), as well as in seaports (Burgas in Bulgaria, Rijeka region in Croatia, Koper in Slovenia, Navodari in Romania, Gdansk in Poland); thirdly, to sources of natural gas, either produced locally (Transylvania in the center of Romania) or received through gas pipelines from Russia (Potisje in eastern Hungary, in the middle reaches of the Vistula in eastern Poland).
Light industry satisfies the basic needs of the population in fabrics, clothing, and footwear; a significant part of its products is exported. CEE countries occupy a prominent place in Europe in the production of cotton, wool and linen fabrics, leather shoes, as well as such specific products as costume jewelry, art glass and art ceramics (Czech Republic). The main areas of the textile industry historically developed in the center of Poland (Lodz) and on both sides of the Sudeten Mountains - in the south of Poland and in the north of the Czech Republic.
The region has a large shoe industry - in the 80s, over 500 million pairs of shoes were produced per year. It is more developed in Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Croatia. In particular, the Czech Republic is among the leading countries in the world in the production and export of footwear per capita. Well-known centers in the industry include Zlín (in the Czech Republic), Radom and Helmek (Poland), Timisoara and Cluj-Napoca (Romania), and Borovo and Zagreb (Croatia).
CEE has all the main branches of the food industry, but at the same time, each country specializes in the production of certain types of products in accordance with the nature of local agricultural raw materials and national customs in the consumption of certain food products. In the northern group of countries, the share of industries processing livestock products is much higher; Among products of plant origin, their share is high in the production of sugar and beer. Southern countries are distinguished by the production of vegetable oil, canned vegetables, grape wines, fermented tobacco and tobacco products. A significant part of these types of products from sub-sectors specialized in the north and south of the region is intended for export.
In the context of the transition to a market economy in CEE countries, the main changes in industry consist of a decrease in the share of basic industries (coal and ferrous metallurgy), as well as mechanical engineering. Particularly significant are intra-industry changes towards a reduction in production with increased energy and material intensity. A number of countries in the region receive loans from Western Europe for the purchase of high-tech equipment and the replacement of outdated production facilities with new ones, the products of which are in demand on the world market. Industrial modernization progressed more successfully in the 1990s in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. The most difficult situation in industry is in the republics of the former Yugoslavia (with the exception of Slovenia); they became embroiled in a decades-long conflict that greatly affected their economy.
Agriculture. Expanding agricultural production is one of the important areas of promising specialization for CEE countries. For this, the region has favorable soil and climatic conditions. During the post-war period, gross agricultural output increased significantly, and the yield of main crops and livestock productivity increased several times. But in terms of the general level of development, especially in terms of labor productivity, the agriculture of the CEE countries is still significantly inferior to that of Western Europe. In this regard, there are differences among individual CEE countries. For example, there is a high level of agriculture in the Czech Republic, Hungary and lower in the countries of the Balkan Peninsula and Poland. In general, the population of CEE is provided with basic agricultural products and a considerable part of them can be exported. In turn, the region, like Western Europe, needs to import tropical products and some types of agricultural raw materials (primarily cotton). In the process of transition to a market economy, CEE agriculture is increasingly encountering difficulties in selling products on Western markets in the context of the crisis of overproduction and intense competition existing there. At the same time, close to CEE there is an extensive Russian market, to which, on new, mutually beneficial terms, products that are in short supply for Russia are supplied in large quantities, primarily vegetables, fruits, grapes and processed goods.
The place of the CEE region in European agricultural production is determined mainly by the production of grain, potatoes, sugar beets, sunflowers, vegetables, fruits and meat and dairy products. In 1996-1998 CEE countries produced on average about 95 million tons of grain per year (almost 40% more than Russia, but half as much as Western European countries). Of this amount, the main grain crops - wheat, corn and barley - accounted for 33, 28 and 13 million tons, respectively. But there are large country-by-country differences in the composition of the dominant grain crops and the volume of their production. The largest grain producer - Poland (in volume is comparable to the UK, but inferior to Ukraine) stands out for the production of wheat and rye. In the southern group of countries, along with wheat, a lot of corn is grown (primarily in Romania, Hungary and Serbia). It is this group of countries that, together with Denmark and France, stands out as having the largest grain production per capita in Europe. In the diet of the inhabitants of the southern group of countries, beans stand out, while in the northern group, especially in Poland, potatoes are prominent. Poland alone grew almost as much potatoes as Germany, France and Great Britain combined. In the Middle and Lower Danube plains within Hungary, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria, many sunflowers are grown; their lands produce more sunflower seeds than all of Western Europe (only Ukraine is a larger producer in Europe). In the northern group of countries (especially in Poland), another oilseed crop is widespread - rapeseed. Flax has been cultivated in the Baltic states and Poland for a long time. More sugar beets are also grown there, although this crop has become widespread in all CEE countries. This region is a large producer of vegetables, fruits and grapes, and in the southern countries, especially a lot of tomatoes and peppers, plums, peaches and grapes are grown, a significant part of which is intended for export, including to the northern part of the region.
During the post-war period, a significant increase in crop production and a change in its structure in favor of forage crops contributed to the development of livestock farming and an increase in the share of its products in total agricultural production. In Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, breeding cattle and pigs is of greater importance. They have higher slaughter weight of livestock and average milk yield. In the southern group of countries, the general level of livestock husbandry is lower, and pastoralism and sheep breeding are common.
Transport
central eastern europe resource
During the post-war period, transport work in the region grew faster than national income. This was due primarily to the high rate of industrialization, the expansion of mining and other basic heavy industries, and the increase in agricultural output; with the creation of industry in previously economically underdeveloped areas that were drawn into the sphere of territorial division of labor; with the transition of the industry to large-scale mass production and with the development of intra-industry specialization and cooperation of production, accompanied in many cases by the spatial division of the technological cycle; with the dynamic expansion of foreign trade exchanges within the region and especially with the former USSR, from where large flows of fuel and raw materials were sent. All this led to a manifold increase in the mass of transported goods, for which the road network created in the previous period was mainly used; This especially concerned its backbone - the railway network (the density of the railway network in CEE as a whole is much less than in Western Europe). In the 1980s, the density of freight transport by rail in the region was, however, much greater than in Western European countries. For this purpose, most of the main lines were modernized: transferred to electric and diesel traction. It was they who took over the main flows of cargo. At the same time, there were significant differences between countries. Along with the closure of a number of minor roads, new lines were built. The main ones: Upper Silesia - Warsaw, Belgrade - Bar (connected Serbia with Montenegro through the mountainous regions and provided Serbia with access to the sea), as well as broad gauge lines (as in the CIS countries): Vladimir-Volynsky - Dombrova -Gurnicha and Uzhgorod - Kosice (for the supply of iron ore raw materials to the metallurgy of Poland and Czechoslovakia by Ukraine and Russia), the creation of the sea ferry railway system Ilyichevsk - Varna was of great importance for speeding up and reducing the cost of transportation between Bulgaria and the USSR.
The road network was significantly expanded and improved. First-class highways appeared. Separate sections of the meridional expressway North - South are being built from the Baltic coast to the Aegean Sea and the Bosphorus Strait (Gdansk - Warsaw - Budapest - Belgrade - Sofia - Istanbul with a branch to Nis - Thessaloniki). The importance of the latitudinal highway Moscow - Minsk - Warsaw - Berlin is increasing. But in general, the CEE region continues to lag far behind Western Europe in terms of the level of development of the road network and road transport.
The CEE region has become an important link in the developing European pipeline transport system. It was on the route of the main flows of oil and natural gas from Russia to the EU countries. The creation of a network of main oil and gas pipelines made it possible to reduce the load on railway transport, the capacity of which was almost exhausted. The basis of the CEE pipeline network is oil and gas pipelines transporting fuel and raw materials from Russia. These pipelines transport a lot of natural gas in transit to other European countries. Thus, gas is transferred through the territory of Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary to the countries of Western Europe, and through Romania and Bulgaria to Greece and Turkey.
An urgent task of European cooperation in the field of transport is the development of a unified system of inland waterways of international importance. An important link in this system is the Rhine-Main-Danube waterway.
The complexes of hydraulic structures along this route have been largely completed. However, to ensure regular transportation of bulk cargo, several “bottlenecks” have to be “expanded”. One of them is the section of the Danube between Slovakia and Hungary, where during shallow waters (usually in the second half of summer) the passage of loaded ships is difficult. In order to improve navigation conditions in this area, it was decided to build a joint hydro complex Gabchikovo - Nagymaros. Shortly before the completion date of this large structure, Hungary abandoned its continuation in 1989 (for environmental and political reasons). Unfortunately, the political situation puts many obstacles in the way of pan-European integration. Another example: the cessation of regular navigation on the Danube in 1994 as a consequence of the economic blockade of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by the UN. The most difficult section for navigation on the Danube was, until the early 70s, the area of the Cataract Gorge between the spurs of the Southern Carpathians from the north (Romania) and the spurs of the East Serbian Mountains from the south (Serbia); Through the joint efforts of both countries, two hydroelectric complexes were built there - “Iron Gates I” and “Iron Gates II” with the largest locks and dam hydroelectric stations in Europe (the capacity of the Iron Gates I hydroelectric station is more than 2 million kW).
Maritime transport in CEE countries plays an important role in foreign trade transport, but in general its importance in the transport system of most countries in the region is much less than that of Western European countries. Naturally, in the economy of the coastal countries: Poland (port complexes of Gdynia - Gdansk and Szczecin - Swinoujscie), Romania (Constanza - Adzhidzha complex), Bulgaria (ports of Varna and Burgas) and Croatia (main port of Rijeka), ports play an important role.
External economic relations of the CEE countries in the 60-80s were of decisive importance in the formation of the Eastern European integration region, which included the former USSR. More than 3/5 of the foreign trade turnover of the CEE countries accounted for mutual supplies within the member countries of the former Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. The reorientation of the political and economic development of the CEE countries led in the 90s to changes in their traditional economic ties. The old ties were largely destroyed, and new ones were difficult to establish in the conditions of a large decline in production in the first half of the 90s. Nevertheless, the geographic focus of economic relations between the CEE countries has changed towards primarily Western Europe. Transformations in CEE contribute to the penetration of Western European products and capital into the capacious Eastern European market. At the same time, traditional products from CEE countries find it difficult to make their way to the West in the face of fierce competition. These countries provided only 4% of EU countries' imports at the end of the 90s. CEE's turn to the West did not bring it the expected quick results in reconstruction and economic growth. It became obvious that the long-term development of the economic complexes of the CEE countries should be based on the objective need to combine broad ties with both the West and the East. Efforts are being made to partially restore ties with Russia, Ukraine and other republics of the former USSR on a mutually beneficial basis. The main part - 4/5 of the foreign trade turnover of CEE countries is realized within Europe. At the end of the 90s, about 70% of CEE's foreign trade was carried out with EU countries (the main ones among them are Germany, Italy, and Austria). Mutual trade within the region is also intensifying.
The service sector for domestic and foreign tourists has become an industry that provides the countries of the region with significant income. Tourism is involved in the formation of the territorial structure of the national economy in a number of regions of the CBE countries. This is primarily the Adriatic coast of Croatia, Montenegro and Albania; Black Sea coast of Bulgaria and Romania; Lake Balaton in Hungary. Tourism contributes to the rise of the relatively underdeveloped mountainous regions of Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria. However, its seasonality leads to large fluctuations in employment during the off-season. The weakening use of recreational areas, especially by foreign tourists, is strongly affected by political and economic instability. An example of this is the difficult situation that developed in the first half of the 90s in the Adriatic resorts of Croatia and Montenegro.
In the future, the CEE region will participate in the pan-European and world markets as a consumer primarily of high-tech equipment, energy resources (primarily oil and gas), industrial raw materials and a supplier of competitive types of products from mechanical engineering, non-ferrous metallurgy, pharmaceuticals, and food products. The foreign trade deficit in the balance of payments, characteristic of CEE countries, is partially covered by income from transit transportation, remittances from citizens temporarily working in other countries, and from international tourism.
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Economic and geographical position of Europe: coastal location, compact territory, absence of major natural obstacles, rugged coastlines. Regions of foreign Europe. Natural conditions and resources. Ecological situation, nature conservation.
Eastern Europe as a historical and geographical region includes: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, countries formed as a result of the collapse of the former Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia), Albania, Latvia, Lithuania , Estonia.
There is also an opinion that the countries of this region should be classified as either Central or Middle Europe, since it would be more correct to call Eastern Europe Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the European part of Russia.
But the name “Eastern Europe” stuck with the countries of this region and is recognized throughout the world.
Geographical position. Natural resources
The countries of Eastern Europe represent a single natural territorial massif stretching from the Baltic to the Black and Adriatic Seas. The region and adjacent countries are based on an ancient Precambrian platform, covered by a cover of sedimentary rocks, as well as an area of Alpine folding.
An important feature of all countries in the region is their transit position between the countries of Western Europe and the CIS.
The countries of Eastern Europe differ from each other in geographical location, configuration, size of territory, and wealth of natural resources.
Natural resource reserves include: coal (Poland, Czech Republic), oil and natural gas (Romania), iron ores (countries of the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Slovakia), bauxite (Hungary), chromite (Albania).
In general, it must be said that the region is experiencing a shortage of resources, and in addition, it is a striking example of the “incompleteness” of a set of minerals. Thus, Poland has large reserves of coal, copper ores, and sulfur, but almost no oil, gas, or iron ore. In Bulgaria, on the contrary, there is no coal, although there are significant reserves of lignite, copper ores, and polymetals.
Population
The region's population is about 130 million people, but the demographic situation, which is difficult throughout Europe, is the most alarming in Eastern Europe. Despite the active demographic policy pursued over several decades, natural population growth is very small (less than 2%) and continues to decline. Bulgaria and Hungary are even experiencing natural population decline. The main reason for this is the disruption of the age-sex structure of the population as a result of the Second World War.
In some countries, natural increase is higher than the regional average (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia), and it is the largest in Albania - 20%.
The largest country in the region is Poland (about 40 million people), the smallest is Estonia (about 1.5 million people).
The population of Eastern Europe has a complex ethnic composition, but one can note the predominance of Slavic peoples. Of the other peoples, the most numerous are Romanians, Albanians, Hungarians, and Lithuanians. Poland, Hungary, and Albania have the most homogeneous national composition. Lithuania.
Eastern Europe has always been an arena of national and ethnic conflicts. After the collapse of the socialist system, the situation became more complicated, especially on the territory of the most multinational country in the region - Yugoslavia, where the conflict escalated into an interethnic war.
The most urbanized country in Eastern Europe is the Czech Republic (3/4 of the population lives in cities). There are quite a lot of urban agglomerations in the region, the largest of which are Upper Silesia (in Poland) and Budapest (in Hungary). But most countries are characterized by historically formed small towns and villages, and the Baltic countries are characterized by hamlets.
Farm
The countries of Eastern Europe today are not characterized by a pronounced socio-economic unity. But in general we can say that _. in the 2nd half of the 20th century. Great changes have occurred in the economies of Eastern European countries. Firstly, industries developed at a faster pace - by the 80s, Europe had become one of the most industrial regions of the world, and secondly, previously very backward regions also began to develop industrially (For example, Slovakia in the former Czechoslovakia, Moldova in Romania, northeast Poland). Such results became possible thanks to the implementation of regional policy.
Energy
Due to a shortage of oil reserves, this region is focused on coal, most of the electricity is generated by thermal power plants (more than 60%), but hydroelectric power plants and nuclear power plants also play an important role. One of the largest nuclear power plants was built in the region - Kozloduy in Bulgaria.
Metallurgy
In the post-war period, the industry actively grew and developed in all countries of the region, with non-ferrous metallurgy relying mainly on its own raw materials, and ferrous metallurgy on imported ones.
Mechanical engineering
The industry is also represented in all countries, but is most developed in the Czech Republic (primarily machine tool manufacturing, production of household appliances and computer equipment); Poland and Romania are distinguished by the production of metal-intensive machines and structures, Hungary, Bulgaria, Latvia - by the electrical industry; In addition, shipbuilding is developed in Poland and Estonia.
Chemical industry
The chemical industry of the region lags far behind that of Western Europe due to the lack of raw materials for the most advanced branches of chemistry - oil. But we can still note the pharmaceuticals of Poland and Hungary, the glass industry of the Czech Republic.
Agriculture of the region
Mainly meets the food needs of the population. Under the influence of scientific and technological revolution, significant changes occurred in the structure of the economy of the countries of Eastern Europe: the agro-industrial complex emerged, and specialization of agricultural production took place. It was most clearly manifested in grain farming and in the production of vegetables, fruits, and grapes.
The economic structure of the region is heterogeneous: in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, and the Baltic countries, the share of livestock farming exceeds the share of crop farming; in the rest, the ratio is still the opposite.
Due to the diversity of soil and climatic conditions, several zones of crop production can be distinguished: wheat is grown everywhere, but in the north (Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) rye and potatoes play an important role, in the central part of the subregion vegetable growing and horticulture are cultivated, and the “southern” countries specialize on subtropical crops.
The main crops grown in the region are wheat, corn, vegetables, and fruits.
The main wheat and corn regions of Eastern Europe were formed within the Middle and Lower Danube lowlands and the Danube hilly plain (Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria).
Hungary has achieved the greatest success in grain growing.
Vegetables, fruits, and grapes are cultivated almost everywhere in the subregion, but there are areas where they primarily determine the specialization of agriculture. These countries and regions also have their own specialization in terms of product range. For example, Hungary is famous for its winter varieties of apples, grapes, and onions; Bulgaria - oilseeds; Czech Republic - hops, etc.
Animal husbandry. The northern and central countries of the region specialize in dairy and meat and dairy cattle breeding and pig breeding, while the southern countries specialize in mountain pasture meat and wool animal husbandry.
Transport
In Eastern Europe, which lies at the crossroads of routes that have long connected the eastern and western parts of Eurasia, the transport system has been developing over many centuries. Nowadays, railway transport is the leader in terms of transportation volume, BUT road and sea transport are also intensively developing. The presence of major ports contributes to the development of foreign economic relations, shipbuilding, ship repair, and fishing.
Intraregional differences
The countries of Eastern Europe can be conditionally divided into 3 groups according to the commonality of their EGP, resources, and level of development.
1. Northern group: Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. These countries are still characterized by a low degree of integration, but there are common tasks in the development of the maritime economy.
2. Central group: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary. The economy of the first two countries is of a clearly industrial nature. The Czech Republic ranks first in the region in terms of industrial output per capita.
3. Southern group: Romania, Bulgaria, countries of the former Yugoslavia, Albania. In the past, these were the most backward countries, and now, despite major changes in their economy, the countries of this group lag behind the countries of the 1st and 2nd groups in most indicators.