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As seen in Europe since 1989, one of the most immediate threats to peace and security comes from people seeking political autonomy and the ethnic conflict that often results. The Central Carpathians have been described as an ex-Yugoslovia awaiting a spark. In the words of the East-West Institute, they are "a microcosm of the new Europe, containing a potentially volatile mixture of nations and peoples." The establishment of the Carpathian Euroregion in 1993 seeks to address this potential by increasing the opportunity for trans-boundary cooperation. This paper analyses the Euroregion from the perspective of market forces and economic factors as agents of cooperation. The paper asks:Can economic development within the Euroregion model help create political stability in this region?

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The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Zofia Kordela-Borczyk is a GSFI Fellow on the Ethnic and Sectarian Conflict Research Team. She earned her Masters Diploma from the Krakow Academy of Economics in Krakow, Poland, as a student in International Economics and Social Relations. She later worked as a Lecturer at the School of Economics in Sanok, Poland, where her primary interests included economic enterprise problems. Ms. Kordela-Borczyk also organised a two-year Foreign Trade College at the School of Economics and lectured there on the economy of foreign trade and international accounts, and at the Rzeszów Polish-American Institute of Enterprise on internationl marketing and management. She has held the post of Deputy Director of the Secretariat of the Carpathian Euroregion office in Sanok and Director of Business Support Centre. Ms. Kordela-Borczyk now works as the Country Representative for Poland of the Fund for the Development of the Carpathian Euroregion based in Kosice, Slovakia.