[motomoto]

Growth happened before EU accession in 2007 and it was faster and more robust as it's pretty obvious from the graph I linked. What triggered our economic expansion was reforms that began when we almost defaulted, around the time the first non-Communist government (Democratic Convention in 1996) took power. We stopped printing money to cover huge budget deficits and got rid of hyperinflation. We privatized, simplified and decreased taxation, opened the country to foreign investment, stopped in large part protectionist measures, massively deregulated the economy etc. From a closed economic model inspired by North Korea, we now have an economy that's more free than most of Europe, including our regional competitors like Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Russia or Turkey. UE big government career bureaucrats that can't even "fix" their own failing countries, had nothing to teach us and have no merit in what we have achieved.