The better prospects come from smaller economies like Croatia or any of the Baltics.
One reason there are no big far-right parties in the Baltics is that they have a harder centre-right.
"Eastern Europe, Russia, the Baltics, Asia--that is the future for us, " says Lindelov.
The scene isn't much prettier in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, where, because of struggling economies, currencies have severely weakened.
Moreover, the vaunted difference between world oil prices and the price the Baltics pay for Soviet oil may not be that great.
The Baltics, already in both the EU and NATO, are still wary.
Birth rates in the Baltics have consistently fallen for the past several years, and are now, on average, about 20% lower than in Russia.
FORBES: Russia's Demographics Are Now Better Than The Baltics'
Unlike Estonia, a front-runner to join the European Union, or Latvia, the Baltics' shipping and financial centre, Lithuania has attracted little foreign business interest.
As small and open trading economies with flexible labour markets, the Baltics were able to push down wages faster than more rigid and closed Mediterranean countries.
But it was partly a natural response to a severe contraction (in the Baltics, for example, GDP fell by up to a fifth from peak to trough).
ECONOMIST: Eastern Europe��s economies: Some calm amid storms | The
Taken at face value, what I take Aslund to be arguing is that manufacturing in the Baltics is now, in early 2012, substantially ahead of where it was before the financial crisis.
But they are tiny (the Baltics have a population of barely 7m), so letting them adopt the euro ought not to set an unwelcome precedent for others nor should it damage confidence in the single currency.
On the other hand, there is surely a connection between the legal reforms carried out in central Europe and the Baltics and their fast growth rates, or between Spain's post-Franco legal opening and its long boom.
Several countries, such as Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the Baltics, have either chosen to adopt the Euro or to peg their currencies to it, which makes their currencies artificially expensive and their goods less competitive on world markets.
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There are countries with representative institutions and lousy demographics (the Baltics), countries with representative institutions and robust demographics ( India), countries with authoritarian institutions and robust demographics (Saudi Arabia), and countries with authoritarian institutions and lousy demographics (Belarus).
FORBES: Russia's Demographics Are Now Better Than The Baltics'
While some (though certainly not all) of the population losses in Estonia and Latvia can be attributed to the emigration of ethnic Russians, no such explanation is possible for Bulgaria, Romania, or Lithuania (which unlike the other Baltics never had a sizable ethnic Russian population).
Key members of Congress, notably Senators Riegle, Dixon, D'Amato and others, are sponsoring S.276, a resolution urging the Administration to postpone action on Soviet GATT observer status and other elements of U.S.-Soviet trade ties as long as Soviet intimidation and use of economic force in the Baltics continues.
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