The Numbers:
|
WORLD |
EUROPEAN UNION |
EU SHARE |
| Population |
6.8 billion |
0.5 billion |
7% |
| Countries |
193 |
27 |
14% |
| GDP* |
$70 trillion |
$15 trillion |
22% |
| R&D Spending |
$1.05 trillion |
$270 billion |
25% |
| Exports |
$16.6 trillion |
$6.6 trillion |
40% |
| FDI |
$1.86 trillion |
$0.84 trillion |
45% |
| * PPP basis, 2009. |
What They Mean:
In the 18 years since the 1991 Maastricht Treaty created Europe’s single market, the European Union has grown from a 12-member “economic community” concentrated in western Europe to a 27-country political association stretching out to Central Europe, the Balkan peninsula and the Mediterranean island states. Some data:
- Countries and People: The EU now has 27 members – one in seven of the world’s 193 independent countries — and is home to 490 million of the world’s 6.8 billion people. In the next decade, should it conclude and ratify enlargement agreements with candidates Turkey, Macedonia and Croatia, it would grow to 30 countries and 570 million people.
- Economy: The 27 EU members combine for $14.9 trillion in PPP-basis GDP. This is a bit more than America’s $14.3 trillion; or alternatively, slightly above China’s $7.9 trillion, Japan’s $4.3 trillion, Korea’s $1.3 trillion, Taiwan’s $0.7 trillion and Hong Kong’s $0.3 trillion combined.
- Science: EU businesses, governments and universities account for $270 billion out of an annual world total of around $1.05 trillion in scientific research and development spending.
- Trade and investment:EU members together mustered $6.6 trillion in exports of goods and services (as of 2007), or two-fifths of all world exports. Two-thirds of this was trade among EU members; excluding intra-EU trade the total was $2.3 trillion, placing the EU above America’s $1.65 trillion, China’s $1.31 trillion, and Japan’s $0.78 trillion. German industry makes the EU’s share of world manufacturing exports especially large, at $4.2 trillion out of $9.5 trillion in 2007. The EU’s share of foreign direct investment is slightly higher, at $837 billion out of a global $1.857 trillion total in 2008.
Friday’s Irish vote, bringing 1.8 million people to vote on the “Lisbon Treaty,” is the newest step. Meant as an institutional and procedural reform to match the EU’s geographical expansion, the Treaty aims to give the EU new policy-making efficiency, higher-profile political institutions, and political weight abroad more nearly approximating its economic power. Examples: a European president; quicker political approval of policy decisions, through “dual majority” Council votes representing 55 percent of EU members and 65 percent of EU public; a more powerful Parliament; and a High Representative with a permanent foreign service to represent the EU abroad. The vote came out 1.2 million pro and 0.6 million con, meaning that barring an unlikely setback in Warsaw or Prague, the treaty goes into force this year.
The Weekly Trade fact is a courtesy of the Democratic Leadership Council
