The existence of macroeconomic spillovers and interdependences would open "exchange opportunities" in policy-making that may lead to concerted policy actions. However, these coordination activities will not happen automatically: there have to be investments in "mutual knowledge� and confidence-building so that the potential agreements can be expected to be based on reasonable information about their likely results, and to be determined in a context where reputational arguments limit opportunistic behavior. Those investments require sustained efforts over time, and seem to have an element of irreversibility. In that case, coordination may face large "transaction costs" in the initial stages of integration, and become much easier (and "natural" for decision makers) later on. The development of conditions for meaningful, practical coordination coincides, to a good extent, with the search for a more or less common vision of a medium-term path of sustainable growth in the region which . This seems a non-trivial task.
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