Energy in East Europe Through 1980

Abstract

Eastern Europe is the world’s largest and most tightly knit multinational economic bloc. It is largest in population although its per capita energy output and industrial production lag considerably behind that of other industrial countries. Originally comprised of eight Soviet satelite states welded together by a common political-economic system patterned after that of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe now includes Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, which are members of the SEV (Soviet Ekonomicheskoy Vzaimopomoshchi, known as Comecon-Council for Mutual Economic Assistance), a highly integrated multinational group. Albania and Yugoslavia, both socialist economies of widely divergent philosophies, are not members of the SEV, although Yugoslavia’s specific status is defined by agreement formalized in 1964. The agreement laid the foundation for Yugoslav participation within the group (it has observer status in half of the Comecon’s 24 Commissions) and cooperation.