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This paper elaborates on the criteria derived from economic analysis in order to manage the post-socialist economic transition. The fifth European Union enlargement is more a symbol than such a set of criteria since the new member states will have to live through a second transition period before enjoying the full advantages of EU policies. Although the criteria of macroeconomic convergence, both nominal and real, show a narrowing gap between Central and Eastern Europe and the EU, they do not make it possible to delineate the end of the transition period. Using the level of economic development and the full enforcement of EU law by the new member states as the criteria might push back the transition deadline by two to four decades. We therefore adhere to the simultaneous phasing out of economic processes typical of the path from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. These processes consist of transformational recession, transitional unemployment, barterization, and managerial entrenchment. These will disappear later than 2014, when the new member states will enjoy the full benefit of enlargement as regards their economies in transition.