Politique économique et planification dans les pays du CAEM

The first part of the article deals with the theoretical paradoxes of CMEA cooperation. Although the formally omnipotent cooperation in planning does not co-ordinate « everything » ex ante from above, strong parallel features of development emerge in Eastern Europe due to policy and systemic similarities as well as to regional concerting activities. The role of planning is fundamentally different from the conventionnally presumed one ; in fact a large degree of ex post interest-harmonization takes place, although the role of the hierarchy remains dominant. In the last 15 years it is the strong interest of enterprises, related to maintaining and expanding existing structures and to avoiding painful adjustments to world markets that has become the principal driving force of CMEA integration. The second section analyzes endeavours at a more inward-looking CMEA and its constraints in the 1980's and characterizes typical national approaches and their differences. The role of agriculture has been relegated to the background and that of the energy sector came to the fore, despite policy statements to the contrary. Section three explains why a more intensive coordination of commercial activities on third markets and a larger role of interfirm cooperation between the member states, the two most fashionable ideas among business executives, are not really practicable under present CMEA arrangements. Section four is devoted to cooperation practice following the 1984 Moscow Summit. Since then and under the new Soviet leadership the pluralism of national ways has been institutionally accepted as a lasting feature. The role of the Soviet Union as a trading partner grows, while the impact of multilateral fora diminishes for the East European countries in the rest of the 1980's. The limits to the traditional methods of cooperation have become obvious : only a fundamental renewal of national and regional planning methods is able to create the preconditions for a more efficient and continuous coordination of national and company interests. Outlines for such a renewal are sketched.