Introduction: The Eastern European Commons in Transition

Abstract

"The core of reforms in Central and Eastern European countries was getting rid of obscure 'people’s' ownership and the inefficient 'command economy'. People’s ownership was state ownership and the command economy was a hierarchical arrangement. Agriculture was to somewhat special: to a large extent, neither land nor the assets were nationalized, they were either collectivized (e.g. Czech republic, Bulgaria) or stayed private (Poland). Thus agricultural privatization included not only sales of state properties and restitution of nationalized titles, but also re-distribution of collectively owned assets and full recognition of private property rights. Due to the pre-reform(communist) property rights regime the current ownership structure is very fragmented. The centralized command arrangement was gradually liberalized and decentralized in the early 1990s."