Conditions leading to different levels of
development in two contrasting countries of the EU.
The European Union is a group of 27 countries that have common goals
and close ties to one another.
The EU started as a trading union Between France, Germany,
Italy, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands with the added incentive
of sustaining peace in Post-World War 2 Europe.
Over tie the Union has grown, adding a common market of the
European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957.
The UK joined in 1973 and the EU has slowly expanded ever
since.
The EU has a significant impact upon the lives of EU citizens
because;
·
It
has policies in place to control food production under the Common
Agricultural Policy
·
It
can determine national law through the European Court of Justice
·
It
controls and allows free movement of EU citizens throughout member
countries
·
It
promotes easier trade between EU countries so boosting economies
·
It
can bail out countries in financial trouble through the European Central
Bank
·
It
makes big decisions in a democratic way through its elected MEPs at its
parliaments in Brussels and Strasbourg
·
It
passes laws protecting people’s rights and the environment
·
It
tries to even out differences in development between richer member
states and poorer member states.
Despite high GDPs, HDI, life expectancies and Literacy rates at a
global scale for all members of the EU, there are clear differences
between the nations that make up this trading bloc.
These differences can be clearly seen on the choropleth map
above, and the GDPs of the member states are not equal by any means.
Generally, those countries that joined most recently in the
East of Europe have lower GDPs than longer standing members such as the
UK, France and Germany.
Recent problems in Portugal and Greece are highlighted by
their GDPs, which are also significantly lower than other areas.
The general pattern is one of an ECONOMIC CORE of countries where
businesses thrive, people have lots of opportunities and are relatively
wealthy.
This includes large parts of the UK, Germany, France, Austria
and Italy.
Outside of this area is the ECONOMIC PERIPHERY, those areas on
the edge of the core that have fewer industries, lower standards of
living and fewer opportunities for the people who live there.
These Continental patterns hide further patterns within
countries, with the UK being a good example.
The core area for the UK is London and the South East, whereas
the North of Scotland and the NE of England Can be considered to be
PERIPHERAL areas.
Comparing Poland and the UK, 2012 data (CIA Factbook)
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Reasons for the differences include; 1. The UK has been in the EU longer therefore has had longer to enjoy the trade benefits. 2. The UK is in Europe's Hot or Blue banana, the area that enjoys the most trade 3. Poland took time to change from a communist country to a free market economy after the collapse of the USSR 4. The UK has a more advantageous geographic location for trade - a much larger coastline for ports and in the Atlantic, rather than on the Baltic Sea |
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Think about it |
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Coolgeography.co.uk by Rob Gamesby is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. |