Position of Countries of Central Europe in the Process Of Real Convergence to the Countries of the EU15

Ten years of membership in the European Union has brought to individual countries of Central Europe on one hand important development options and on the other hand it has revealed several bottlenecks of their growth process. Central European countries have improved their position in the European Union, narrowed the performance gap in relation to the EU average and increased the rate of growth of labor productivity. The contribution evaluates progress of Central European countries in their efforts towards the convergence to the EU average. It reviews the creation of conditions for narrowing the performance gap between Central Europe and the EU average, the rate of catch-up process and factors that have the greatest impact on the real convergence of Central Europe to the EU average.