The post-socialist transformation of CEE can be considered to be one of the greatest developments in modern history. Unexpectedly, a group of countries emerged from an autocratic political system and centrally planned economy and within the space of a single generation was able to build pluralistic democracies and open market economies. Economic development proceeded quickly. Of course, this process was not smooth. Several obstacles, upheavals and tensions occurred during all stages of the transition, and particularly during the global financial crisis that began in 2008-2009. However, already at the beginning of the 2000s most of the CEE countries were able to meet the fundamental standards set by the European Union and started achieving clear convergence with the Western European countries in both economic and institutional terms.The issue of convergence[2] is especially important since the CEE countries have for centuries been less developed than their western counterparts. This was due to long historical processes (what F. Braudel called the longue durée[3]) whose foundations were laid by the Roman Empire (many of the present CEE countries were located beyond its boundaries, i.e. beyond the limes). This situation was further reinforced by the division of Europe into its more developed western part which, from the 16th century onwards, moved from agriculture to industry and from feudalism to capitalism, and its eastern part, which remained feudal for a long time (until the 19th century), and whose economy was based on agriculture. More recently, the East-West division of Europe by the Iron Curtain after the Second World War aggravated the backwardness of Central and Eastern Europe.