TRANSFORMING PROPERTY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

The goal of this paper is to present and analyse the evolution and the results of property transformation process in Central and Eastern European countries, a process imposed by the differences in productivity between public and private property during the planned economic system. We aim at providing an overview of the main aspects related to the privatization process in several transition countries, emphasizing the role played by the institutional framework in this process. The research methods are the analysis of scientific literature on the subject and of different reports as well as the comparative analysis of secondary statistical data. The results point to the fact that, in many countries, privatization hardly reached its targets, being obstructed by corruption, legislative ambiguities and the weaknesses of the state. These obstacles hampered the rapid transformation of public property into private property as well as the creation of a free market-oriented economic system.