The map was made in the current 2021-2027 EU budget cycle, but it could have been made at the time of the Union’s founding, or even several hundred years ago: in the northwest, people are rich; in the south and east, people are poor. In the east, only the capitals are exceptions.
What does this constancy tell us? Is the Union’s cohesion policy perhaps misguided? Or are the new member states unable to seize the opportunities? Or are the inherited differences simply too large? Or is there some truth in all these assumptions?
What should we think about Italy, which was a founding member, yet shows the same north-south divide as it did in 1951? Perhaps maximising per capita GDP is not the most important life goal everywhere?
One of the interesting aspects of the map is that Budapest appears among the developed regions. That is, the Hungarian capital performs better than any region of Greece or Portugal, and also better than almost all regions of the former Eastern Bloc.
What was new to me, however, is that based on the regions of the Czech Republic, it seems that nowadays it is better to be Austria’s neighbour than Germany’s. According to the map, the former has proportionally more developed regions than the latter.
Another important point is that the map shows relative levels of development. If Ukraine joins the EU, the Union’s average level of development will naturally decrease, meaning that many regions could move up a category simply because the average has fallen. This highlights yet another risk of our eastern neighbour’s accession: that fewer EU funds may be allocated to Hungary than before.
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