Who's the richest kid on the bloc?
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A new detailed study has revealed major discrepancies in wealth between EU regions. But the striking East-West divide that is making the headlines hides other, more complex disparities that may well have a greater impact on countries' access to EU funding in the future.
The findings by the EU statistics agency Eurostat show that the richest region in the bloc, London, was over seven times wealthier than the poorest region, Bulgaria's Severozapaden.
The survey looked at average GDP head per inhabitant throughout the EU. Perhaps unsurprisingly, regions from the newest members - Romania and Bulgaria - fill the bottom of the table. Yet areas from Poland and Hungary, countries that joined the EU nearly 6 years ago, also scored poorly. ,
As the EU is currently gearing up to discuss the allocation of funds over the next financial period, from 2014 to 2021, this survey is raising questions about whether development funding is being spent in the best possible manner.
However, says Brussels correspondent Nina-Maria Potts, the devil really lies in the detail here. For instance, Poland, which has five regions in the bottom twenty of the survey, but it should be remembered these are agricultural areas in a relatively large country. In fact, she says, Poland is still viewed by EU institutions as a sucess story, having managed spending well to keep its economy on the right track.
Greece on the other hand, is seen as having squandered EU funds and that could severely hamper its chances if the fight for funding turns nasty.
