The European Perspective of Eleven Transition Countries: Thirty Years Beyond

More than three decades after the collapse of socialism in Europe, relatively enough time has passed for analysis the effects of the transition of socialist countries. The transition countries that are analysed and compared are members of the European Union. The article analysed the effects of institutional changes on prosperity and perspective in eleven transition countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Prosperity is analysed through three domains: inclusive societies, open economies and empowered people. The perspective is evaluated according to the achieved prosperity, corruption index, and trend of population of each country. The finding shows that only three countries increased their number of inhabitants in the observed period. The finding points to large differences of prosperity, and strong presence of corruption within transition countries, and their large lag by prosperity behind the top thirty countries – very different perspectives.