Economic integration within COMECON and with the Western economies

Abstract

The establishment of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) was not only a Soviet-dominated alternative to the early Central, East and South-East Europe (CESEE) attempts for intra-regional cooperation but also a reaction to developments in Western Europe, primarily to that of the Marshall Plan. The supreme body of COMECON was the Council Session, which was the annual summit meeting of heads of member countries’ governments. Foreign trade enterprises conducted transactions both with enterprises of other COMECON countries and enterprises from the rest of the world, though under very different conditions. Prices of commodities in the intra-regional trade had been the one of the most sensitive issues from the birth to the dissolution of COMECON. Face-to-face hard currency trade among COMECON countries was supplemented by indirect intra-COMECON trade accomplished through Western mediators. Immediately after the 1989/1990 political changes, political and economic motives mixed in the small COMECON countries’ considerations on the future development of their external economic relations.