Europe - Oases of Affluence and Pockets of Poverty

Switzerland is an oasis of affluence: seven out of eight of the richest European regions are in the Swiss Confederation. Geneva leads the way with disposable income per capita of around EUR 36,000 per annum. The inhabitants of Eastern Europe, on the other hand, have to live far more modestly, the countries with the least disposable income being Albania (EUR 563), the Ukraine (EUR 379) and Moldavia (EUR 223). These are the findings of a survey carried out by GfK-Regionalforschung.

In a country-by-country comparison of incomes in Euro, the Swiss edged ahead in 2001 with an average of EUR 25,603 per inhabitant, while the Luxembourgers had just under EUR 25,000 per capita and the Norwegians approx. EUR 19,000. The Swiss have their strong currency to thank for this result. At No. 6 in the ranking is the UK which, with EUR 16,451, has overtaken Germany for the first time in a long while (Germany: EUR 16,171 per capita). This development is also attributable to the strong pound compared with the Euro during the survey period.

As in previous years, it is noticeable that while the list of affluent countries is headed exclusively by EU states and countries in Central and Northern Europe, the last 20 places are occupied by countries in Southern and especially Eastern Europe. However, there are also significant differences between these countries. With income per capita of EUR 6,436, Slovenia has slid below Portugal, the poorest EU country with an average annual income of EUR 7,466 per capita. In Moldavia, Europe's poorest region, people have an average of EUR 223 at their disposal, less than one per cent of the purchasing power of their Swiss counterparts.

In order to take account of the price discrepancies in individual countries, these should be compared on the basis of purchasing power parities. Since the price level is considerably higher in affluent countries than in countries with lower purchasing power, Luxembourg is actually ahead of Switzerland. Luxembourgers have a 53 per cent higher purchasing power than the Germans, while the Swiss are only 28 per cent above the German level. Moldavia also comes off worst in a country comparison of parity, but the gap between this country and the affluent countries is not as wide as that of the comparison of disposable income. The purchasing power of people from Moldavia currently amounts to roughly five per cent of the purchasing power of people from Luxembourg.

The purchasing power of inhabitants in individual regions within the European countries was measured using the purchasing power index and taking the German average of 100 points as a basis. In Western Europe, Geneva leads the way with a purchasing power index of 180.4, while Paris follows with 159 points. The Hochtaunus district north of Frankfurt is ranked seventh with 139.8 points, closely followed by Bologna, Italy with an index of 138.5. In a separate comparison of the 300 areas in Eastern Europe, four regions in Western Slovenia come out on top with an index of between 69.9 and 76.4. With 67.9 points, Prague is in fifth place. Compared with the areas of affluence in Western Europe, the richest regions in Eastern Europe still have considerable ground to make up, as they only have around half of the purchasing power of areas in Western Europe.

There is substantial regional variation within the 38 European countries. A survey of the purchasing power in the 103 Italian provinces confirmed a marked North-South discrepancy. Whereas some of the regions in Northern Italy are among the wealthiest areas in Europe, the purchasing power south of Rome in what is known as the Mezzogiorno drops significantly. The purchasing power in the Northern provinces of Milan, Parma, Modena and Bologna is around 30 per cent above the average for Italy as a whole, while in some of the Southern regions it is 40 per cent below the Italian average.

The findings are taken from the new 'GfK Eastern Europe Basic Market Data 2001' survey and the 'Europe Basic Market Data 2001' survey of 1,500 regions in 38 European countries.

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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