Brussels, 28/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - The second interim report on economic and social cohesion, to be adopted by the Commission on Thursday, will confirm that development disparity within the EU will become twice as great with enlargement. In terms of GDP per capita, the gap between the 10% of the population living in the most prosperous regions and the 10% of the population living in the least prosperous regions will have more than doubled compared to the current situation in the Europe of Fifteen, the draft report states, on the basis of figures for the year 2000. The European Commission calculated that, in a Europe with twenty-five Member States, 116 million inhabitants - i.e. around 25% of the total population - will live in regions where the GDP per capita is less than 75% of the Community average (68 million inhabitants, or 18% of the total, in the current Union). Sixty percent of these 116 million located in the areas considered to be lagging behind in development (according to the current Objective 1 criteria) will be nationals of the ten new Member States. In the same way, although growth has been on the whole higher in candidate countries than in the current Member States, it does not create jobs, the Commission stresses. Thus, "three million jobs should be created to bring the average level of employment in the new Member States into line with that in the European Union". In 2001, in nearly half of the regions of candidate countries, the rate of unemployment was over twice that prevailing in the Union.
Nonetheless, from the point of view of development (GDP per capita in 2001), the Commission stresses that enlargement will not cut the European Union in two, but will form three groups of countries - as had already been highlighted in the interim report published last year. The first group brings together the countries that have the lowest income per capita, accounting for 42% of the average of the 25-member EU. It includes all candidate countries other than Slovenia and Cyprus. The GDP level ranges from 37% of the average in Lithuania to 65% in the Czech Republic. This first group includes 21% of the population of the 25-member EU. Last year, the Czech Republic belonged to the second group. This second group (13% of the EU25 population) includes Slovenia, Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and Spain. The GDP of these countries was, in 2001, between 71% (Greece) and 92% (Spain) of the average of the 25. The third group includes all the other current Member States, their GDP per capita being above the average (115% on average).
Data contained in Thursday's report is very close to that of the earlier interim report (EUROPE of 30 and 31 January 2002). Moreover, it presents the first results of the study carried out on the islands, as well as new tables on the level of involvement of regions in research and development.
While the Commission does not in this report take a stance on the financing of regional policy for the period 2007-2013, Commissioner Michel Barnier has on many occasions stressed that, in his view, it is at least necessary to devote 0.45% of the Union's GDP to this policy, to help regions of new Member States as a priority, while continuing to provide aid to the EU15 regions. The Commission will not take a clear position on the next regional package until November this year, when it presents its proposals (EUROPE of 24 January, p.10, and 25 January, p.10).