This is a chapter that introduces the major arguments for selecting EEE countries for comparisons with Arab economies. The focus is placed on the neighborhood, with the European Union and the similarities related to the transition processes experienced by EEE countries while moving form centralized and administrated to open and market-driven economies. The series of international collaborative frameworks developed with the EU, with Arab countries, and within the Mediterranean region are also among the reasons behind selecting the comparisons between Arab and EEE economies.
TopPrevious Contributions
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (EEE) stand out, compared to other developing countries, by the limited number of people affected by poverty money. They appear, however, to have very different levels of human development indicators (HDI) and the conditions of exercise of fundamental freedoms in the political, economic and social development, the EEE are in a situation systematically more advantageous than the MENA countries (Labaronne & Ben Abdelkader, 2006).
Tovias (2001) and also in Tovias (2005) some indexes of similarity are calculated for EU industrial imports, by using only EU industrial import data disaggregated at the two-level digit of the Harmonized System (categories 25-99) from different origins. The degree of similarity between the five most advanced EEE countries are 37.6 for Turkey, 31.3 for Tunisia, 28.5 for Morocco, 26.9 for Lebanon, 23.2 for Jordan, 22.0 for Egypt, 9.5 for Algeria, 11.6 for Syria and 8.2 for Libya. Most like Cyprus's industrial exports to the EU are those from Turkey (53.3), Morocco (51.8), Tunisia (51.1) followed by Lebanon, Israel and only then Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Algeria and Libya. When category HS27 (Mineral fuels, Oils, Waxes & Bituminous sub) is excluded, it appears that Cyprus (59.5 percent), Bulgaria (50.4 percent) and Romania (49.1 percent) are the most similar to MENA. They are in better position than Estonia and Lithuania. However, Latvia is the least similar.