Danube Institute honlapja

Leszek Balcerowicz on the transition in Eastern Europe

15/04/2016
Videos

The Danube Institute held a lecture examining the different policies adopted by governments during the transition.

Transition to the Free Market - What Worked, What Didn't

A lecture by Leszek Balcerowicz

2nd March 2016

Following the peaceful revolutions of 1989 and 1991, the countries of Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union revealed to themselves and others that they had been living in an economic wasteland disguised as Utopia.

Drawbacks and benefits were not, of course, evenly distributed between the different post-communist economies. Some had better prospects than others.

But liberalization produced surprises. Slovakia, forced to compete when Czech subsidies were removed following the velvet divorce, did so and prospered; Hungary, burdened by heavy debts inherited from its communist past, never quite fulfilled expectations; and Poland outdistanced all its neighbours economically following a painful but successful policy of market reforms known as „shock therapy.” For instance Poland’s GDP, which was broadly equal to Ukraine’s in 1990, is now approximately three times as large.

The Danube Institute held a lecture examining the different policies adopted by governments during the transition to market freedom, and comparing the outcomes for their countries. The lecturer was the father of Poland's "shock therapy”, Leszek Balcerowicz, who has had a distinguished career in the academy, politics, and more recently in Euro-Atlantic institutions.

Dr. Balcerowicz is a former Deputy PrimeMinister and Minister of Finance (1989-1991 and 1997-2001), and a former President of the National Bank of Poland (2001-2007). He served as a member of the High Level Expert Group on EU Financial Supervision, chaired by Jacques de Larosiere. He is a member of the Group of Thirty founded by Paul Volcker. And in 2009, he was elected President of the International Atlantic Economic Society (IAES.).

He is a recipient of numerous honours from universities and of awards worldwide. In particular he was awarded Poland's highest decoration – the Order of the White Eagle - for his contribution to the reforms in Poland (2005).

In 2007, Leszek Balcerowicz was appointed Chairman of Bruegel, a European think tank. In 2008, he created the Civil Development Forum Foundation FOR, a free market think-tank in Poland. And in 2014, he was awarded with the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty.

Policy Experts Debate Causes of 2008 Financial Crisis Policy Experts Debate Causes of 2008 Financial Crisis Governments as well as banks were to blame for the crisis which rocked the international financial system in 2008 2013-11-15 13:36:00 2013-11-15 13:36:00 1

The causes, cures and consequences of the 2008 financial crisis was the subject of a major international conference in Budapest on Friday 15th November – the first major event staged by the Danube Institute.

Among those attending the conference at the Károlyi-Csekonics Rezidencia were senior advisers to the Hungarian government, diplomats, academics, and business leaders.

Speakers included the former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Lamont and the former Italian foreign minister and economist Antonio Martino as well as the American economist Peter Wallison, Counsel to the President in the Reagen Administration and co-chairman of the official US inquiry into the causes of the crisis, and Péter Ákos Bod, a former Governor of the Hungarian Central Bank.

The conference, entitled: The Financial Crisis of 2008: Causes, Consequences, Cures, which received extensive media coverage, focused on the social and cultural impact of the crisis, as well as its economic consequences.

While there was a considerable divergence of opinion on the causes of the crisis there was general agreement that blame for it could not be levelled exclusively at the banks. Governments, such as that of the US which fuelled an unsustainable housing boom through affordable housing polices, also came under fire, as did the ECB for imposing an interest rate regime which produced similar results in several EU member states.

Hungary’s former Central Bank Governor Bod was broadly optimistic about the EU’s economic future and the future of the euro, while Antonio Martino, the former Italian foreign minister and a distinguished monetarist economist argued that the euro was unsustainable in its present form and that the political future of the European Union was deeply uncertain.

Please click here to download the programme of the conference.

/img/1/l1.jpg

Should Governments Spy on their Friends? Should Governments Spy on their Friends? Modern surveillance methods reveal patterns of human behaviour that can frustrate terrorist plots and save lives. 2013-11-06 13:43:00 2013-11-06 13:43:00 4

How far governments should go in using modern technology to spy on other states, even upon those which they regard as close Allies, a subject of huge contemporary interest, was the topic of Electronic Eavesdropping and Diplomacy, a lecture by Charles Crawford, a former senior British diplomat at the Danube Institute on Tuesday 5th November.

Crawford who was British Ambassador to Poland from 2003-2007 argued that technical advances in surveillance methods enabled governments to establish patterns of human behavior which were a vital tool in combatting international terrorism.

It was clear that those governments and politicians which had criticized the US government for spying on the political leaders of friendly states were themselves using such methods.

Moreover while counter measures might be devised to frustrate surveillance, it was unlikely that these would be wholly successful, or that governments would cease to use methods that were necessary to protect public safety.

/img/1/l1.jpg

Full House for Film on Soviet Nightmare Full House for Film on Soviet Nightmare Personal tragedies demonstrate the consequences of the doomed attempt to reshape human nature. 2013-10-25 13:44:00 2013-10-25 13:44:00 5

More than 100 guests attended the Puskin Mozi on 24th October for first public showing of Age of Delirium, a documentary film by David Satter which tells the story of the fall of the Soviet Union as lived and experienced by ordinary Soviet people.

After the screening the film-maker discussed the film and his experiences as a Moscow news correspondent during the final days of the Soviet Union.

The film which won the Van Gogh Grand Jury Prize at the was based on Satter’s book, Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union.

/img/1/l1.jpg

No Joking Matter No Joking Matter The once popular political jokes simply canâ€™t survive the transition from communism to capitalism. 2013-11-08 13:43:00 2013-11-08 13:43:00 3

Did the political joke die with the collapse of communism? According to the British sociologist Christie Davies, an international authority on the roots of humour of all kinds, that is precisely what happened.

In a stimulating lecture at which was full of insights into some overlooked aspects of the transition from communism to capitalism jokes are simply not as at home in conditions of freedom and competing ideologies as in authoritarian societies.

Professor Davies lecture’s was delivered at ELTE University, Budapest on 7th November.

/img/1/l1.jpg 1 4