According to this critical analysis, the EU has reached a point with its compromises and its pressure on the candidate countries, where the unchanged continuation of the present policies would endanger the results of the ongoing integration and push the process into a deadlock. Hungarian economic policy also cannot be shaped without taking this fact into consideration.

The so far biggest socialist experiment has failed, but the challenge that created it is still valid and relevant. What is more, in the age of new capitalism, the "temptation" to reflect on the social problems bearing this challenge has become stronger than ever.

Emanuel Todd: Après l'Empire: Essai sur la décomposition du système américain, Gallimard, Paris 2002

Miskolc, 4-5 April 2003