Effects of EU Trade Policy on Export Development in South East European Countries: Some Important Lessons

The European Union (EU) trade policy towards South East European Countries (SEE countries - Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro and Republic of Macedonia) is one of the important tools of EU's integration strategy. The exports from SEE countries to the European Union are preferred within special autonomous trade measures for SEE countries which were introduced by the EU in September 2000 (the 2000TM). The 2000TM are a far-ranging set of preferences which provide the SEE countries with unparalleled market access to the EU, and hence with the potential both to develop existing exports and to generate new exports.However, SEE countries’ exports to the EU are far below the level which could reasonably be expected. A number of supply- side and domestic policy reasons are given for this under-performance, which suggests that the 2000TM are likely in part to rectify the situation.The economic regeneration of the SSE countries will depend from the success of internal economic reform and from the adoption of economic and trade policies which specifically identify and address some serious supply-side constraints.