CONVERGENCE OF TRANSITIONAL COUNTRIES TOWARDS THE EUROPEAN UNION

This paper analyzes convergence of transitional countries towards European Union. Different types of convergence are considered: nominal, structural and real convergence. It is analyzed the level of convergence which Croatia and other transitional countries achived from different point of views so that we can get complete evaluation of Croatia`s position on it`s way to EU.Issue of convergence is very interesting these days. It is considered that free trade and mobility of factors of production contribute to faster development and convergence. Because of that it is very important for countries to achieve high level of convergence in order to exploit advantages of integrating and deducting common policy. In the paper is shown that in the process of integration is very important to pay attention to nominal, but also to real and structural convergence so that potential country member and the integration itself can exploit advantages of such a membership. The process of adjustment has a long-term character and it is of big importance to achieve high and sustainable convergence having in consideration different criteria