Few query the ability of neo-liberal policies to bring the economies of former communist countries to a level of growth that can increase the living standards of their populations. But, as the report clearly shows, this can only be achieved in the long term and in the meantime the people suffer. The result has been a social catastrophe of incredible proportions. Georgia, a state with a sub-tropical climate enabling it to grow an abundance of agricultural produce, has seen its GDP per capita fall to a level below that of Swaziland and its incidence of tuberculosis rise higher than that of India. Moldova, according to some indicators, has replaced Albania as Europe's poorest country.
People die younger in Russia than in many Asian countries.
Living conditions have now, in many cases, reached third-world levels and, as is to be expected, children have suffered most. To ask children to bear the brunt of economic change is an extremely immoral proposition. The people of the East were welcomed back to the European community of nations. The horrifying statistics revealed in the ECT report should play a part in changing the West's attitudes to its fellow Europeans to the east. If the thought of 50 million impoverished children on the borders of the European Union is not enough to spur action, then Western European hearts have hardened to an irredeemable degree.