European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
are collected by Eurostat (European statistics body).
Area and population
As of 1 January 2006, the population of the EU was about 493 million people, although in 2020 the EU lost over 10% of its population as a result of the UK leaving the bloc. Many countries are expected to experience a decline in population over the coming decades, though this could be offset with new countries planning to join the EU within the next 20 years. The most populous member state is Germany, with an estimated 80.4 million people. France and Ireland have the highest birth-rates. The most
densely populated
Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopul ...
country is the island of
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
, which is also the smallest, while the largest in area is France. The least densely populated country is
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
.
Population figures in the table below are from 2006 or 2007 estimates. The highest and lowest figures in each column have been marked in bold.
Economy
''For statistics relating to economy, please see
Economy of the European Union
The economy of the European Union is the joint economy of the member states of the European Union (EU). It is the third largest economy in the world in nominal terms, after the United States and China, and the third one in purchasing power p ...
''.
EU budget
The primary resource for funding the European Union is the contributions sought from member states. Each member state contributes to the
EU budget
The Budget of the European Union (EU budget) is used to finance EU funding programmes (such as the European Regional Development Fund, the Cohesion Fund, Horizon Europe, or Erasmus+) and other expenditure at the European level.
The EU budget ...
, and receives funding back from the EU, depending on the relative wealth of the states, i.e. their ability to pay.
The table below shows the contributions as a percentage of the total budget. This takes into account the special considerations given to the United Kingdom to reduce its contribution through a rebate. Expenditure in Luxembourg, Belgium and France include items for the EU administrative centres in each of those countries.
Economic and governance-related rankings
There are many indices available on issues such as corruption,
development
Development or developing may refer to:
Arts
*Development hell, when a project is stuck in development
*Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting
*Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped
* Photograph ...
, and freedom. The rankings below include all EU member states, EU candidates (with the exception of Turkey, cause their accession negotiations have stalled since 2016) and EFTA countries.
Freedom of the press
Reporters sans frontières
Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...
(Reporters Without Borders) conducts an annual survey on the freedom of the press and produces scores (not shown here) for each country, resulting in the
Press Freedom Index
The Press Freedom Index is an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders since 2002 based upon the organisation's own assessment of the countries' press freedom records in the previous year. It intends to re ...
. In 2019 and 2020, Finland was proclaimed as having the freest press in the European Union, and the second in the world behind Norway.
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' and the
Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation (abbreviated to Heritage) is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. that is primarily geared toward public policy. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the preside ...
. It uses 50 different variables to compile the survey, in areas such as trade policy and government intervention.
A similar index produced by the
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
is its
Global Competitiveness Index
The ''Global Competitiveness Report'' (GCR) is a yearly report published by the World Economic Forum. Since 2004, the ''Global Competitiveness Report'' ranks countries based on the Global Competitiveness Index, developed by Xavier Sala-i-Martin an ...
Transparency International
Transparency International e.V. (TI) is a German registered association founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank. Based in Berlin, its nonprofit and non-governmental purpose is to take action to combat global corruption with civil ...
is an international NGO publishing an annual Global Corruption Report indicating the perception of corruption
around the world. The rankings of the table refer to the Corruption Perceptions Index 201 A high ranking means low corruption.
Human development
The
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, wh ...
is a measure produced by the United Nations which covers three aspects of human development:
* poverty (GDP per capita)
* education ( mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling)
* health (
life expectancy
Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...
)
The rankings of the table refer to the UNDP Human Development Report 2019 (2018 data). The UN lists all EU member states as countries with very high human development.
Legatum Prosperity Index
The Legatum Prosperity Index is an annual ranking developed by the Legatum Institute, a division of the private investment firm Legatum. The ranking is based on a variety of factors including wealth, economic growth, education, health, personal well-being, and quality of life.
See also
*
Enlargement of the European Union
The European Union (EU) has expanded a number of times throughout its history by way of the accession of new member states to the Union. To join the EU, a state needs to fulfil economic and political conditions called the Copenhagen criteria ...
*
Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits
This is a list of the largest cities in the European Union according to the population within their city boundary. The cities listed all have populations over 300,000. The list deals exclusively with the areas within city administrative boundar ...
List of European Union member states by population
This is a list of European Union (EU) member states by population, which is sorted by the 2020 population figure as provided by Eurostat.
Table
See also
*
* List of countries by population
* List of countries by past and future populati ...