Monthly Report No. 09/2022

Chart of the Month Taking stock of the COVID-19 pandemic by Olga Pindyuk Opinion Corner A third of a century of economic transformation by Grzegorz W. Kolodko Although a third of a century has passed since the Polish Round Table and the fall of the Berlin Wall, we do not know when the post-socialist political and economic transformation really began – or whether it is already over. All things considered, it has proved a great and historic success, even if the scale of it has varied across different countries. Alternative measures of living standards that go beyond GDP suggest that the gap between post-socialist countries and the West may now be smaller than is customarily believed. Economic and environmental convergence in the EU by Roman Römisch Economic convergence is a topic widely discussed in the EU cohesion policy debate, while environmental convergence is a new term, born out of the substantial variations in greenhouse gas emissions across regions and the EU’s aim of becoming climate neutral by 2050. In this article, we ask whether economic convergence is compatible with environmental convergence. Our answer is not necessarily optimistic. Phasing out coal? A challenge to European territorial cohesion in times of energy crisis by Ambre Maucorps A shift away from coal in favour of sustainable energy sources has been promoted by the European Commission as an essential step towards achieving climate neutrality by 2050. But the energy crisis now unfolding in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the use of locally extracted solid fossil fuels as an alternative to natural gas could render the EU’s low-carbon transition ambitions unrealistic – unless EU countries maintain their phase-out plans and show greater solidarity with the regions and communities likely to be most affected. Monthly and quarterly statistics for Central, East and Southeast Europe