In Occasional Paper No. 6, `The Politics of Economic Reform in Central and Eastern Europe', Dariusz K Rosati describes how the transformation of Central and Eastern Europe, initiated in 1989 with overwhelming enthusiasm and hope, lost much of its momentum and vigour just two years later as the prolonged economic downturn, growing unemployment, persistent inflation and declining consumption gave rise to general frustration and disappointment. Rosati examines the dangerous challenges now facing the new democracies of this region, and he finds that external assistance is a necessary, but by no means sufficient, condition for their successful transformation to the market. This also requires their new political elites to maintain their current liberal policy course, while ensuring that they do not replace the interventionism of the past with doctrinaire liberalism, which would risk a political backlash against the reform process. Dr Rosati will present this paper at a lunchtime meeting on 21 July.

In Occasional Paper No. 7, `Agenda for Stage Two: Preparing the Monetary Platform', Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa and Fabrizio Saccomani argue that the harmonization of banking supervision entailed by the European Community's single-market programme is inadequate for the supervision of EC banks following the adoption of a single currency. Harmonization has focused on the legislative and regulatory framework, but all national authorities exercise substantial discretion. As the elimination of internal barriers increases the number of truly supranational banks, disparities in national supervisory practices will tend to impede their supervision of lender-of-last-resort and liquidation procedures. Dr Padoa-Schioppa will present this paper at a lunchtime meeting on 22 July.

CEPR Occasional Papers are available for £5.00/$10.00 each (postage and packaging included) from CEPR Discussion Papers, 90-98 Goswell Road, London, EC1V 7RR.