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Europe’s oldest and wealthiest are … Swiss!

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Brookes cartoon

News came out yesterday that Michel Barnier has created a high-level expert group to tackle reforms to the structure of the EU banking sector.

Erkki Liikanen, Governor of the Bank of Finland, is going to be the Chairman of the Group, and Carole Sergeant, chair of the HM Treasury steering group in the UK, is tasked with devising a suite of ‘simple’ financial products.

The Group will start work immediately, and present final report to the Commission by the end of the summer. 

There may be all those cynics out there, expecting the Eurozone to implode and everything to fall apart, but it won’t happen whilst the Sarkozy-Merkel train rumbles along.

Brookes cartoon

Source: The Sun

Meantime, some interesting stats from the EU were released this week in the European Commission’s Eurostat Guide .

The Guide shows how the EU is performing against other major geographies (USA and Japan), as well as how the EU27 are faring against each other.

It’s an interesting picture, as the UK is nowhere near a leading performer in the EU Champions League tables.

For example, who earns the most?  Who lives longest?  Who has the most unemployed?  And more.

Here’s a couple of samples.

Who earns the most?

This is the average GDP per inhabitant:

  1. Luxembourg                            € 79,500
  2. Norway                                    € 64,500
  3. Switzerland                              € 51,200
  4. Denmark                                  € 42,500
  5. Sweden                                    € 37,000
  6. Netherlands                              € 35,400
  7. Ireland                                     € 34,900
  8. Austria                                     € 34,100
  9. Finland                                    € 33,600
  10. Belgium                                   € 32,600
  11. Germany                                  € 30,300
  12. Iceland                                    € 29,900
  13. France                                     € 29,800
  14. UK                                           € 27,400
  15. Italy                                         € 25,700
  16. Spain                                       € 22,800
  17. Cyprus                                     € 21,600
  18. Greece                                    € 20,100
  19. Slovenia                                  € 17,300
  20. Portugal                                  € 16,200
  21. Malta                                       € 14,800
  22. Czech Republic                         € 14,200
  23. Slovakia                                  € 12,100
  24. Estonia                                    € 10,700
  25. Hungary                                     € 9,700
  26. Poland                                        € 9,300
  27. Lithuania                                    € 8,400
  28. Latvia                                        € 8,000
  29. Romania                                     € 5,800
  30. Bulgaria                                      € 4,800

Eurozone average                    € 27,600

EU27 average                           € 24,400

USA                                          € 35,400

Interestingly, this does not correspond that closely to life expectancy.

Who lives longest?

                                                Average        Men      Women

  1. Switzerland                       82.25          79.9          84.6
  2. Spain                                82.2            79.1          85.3
  3. Iceland                              81.95          79.8          84.1
  4. Italy                                  81.8            79.1          84.5
  5. Sweden                             81.6            79.6          83.6
  6. France                              81.5            78             85
  7. Malta                                81.4            79.2          83.6
  8. Norway                             81.15           79            83.3
  9. Cyprus                              81.1            78.6          83.6
  10. Ireland                             80.95           78.7          83.2
  11. Netherlands                      80.95           78.9          83
  12. Luxembourg                     80.7             77.9          83.5
  13. Austria                             80.7             77.9         83.5
  14. Greece                              80.6           78.4           82.8
  15. Germany                           80.5            78             83
  16. UK                                    80.4            78.3          82.5
  17. Finland                             80.2            76.9          83.5
  18. Belgium                            80.05           77.3         82.8
  19. Portugal                           79.75           76.7          82.8
  20. Slovenia                           79.75           76.4          83.1
  21. Denmark                          79.3             77.2          81.4
  22. Czech Republic                  77.7            74.5          80.9
  23. Poland                              76.4            72.1          80.7
  24. Estonia                             75.7            70.6          80.8
  25. Slovakia                           75.5            71.7          79.3
  26. Hungary                            74.65          70.7          78.6
  27. Bulgaria                            73.85          70.3            77.4
  28. Romania                           73.6            69.8          77.4
  29. Latvia                               73.5            68.6          78.4
  30. Lithuania                          73.45           68             78.9

Eurozone average              80.65          77.8        83.5

 EU27                                79.4            76.4        82.4

USA                                   78.3            75.6        80.8

 

This is even more interesting when you map it out worldwide (doubleclick image to enlarge):

Life Expectancy

Meanwhile, if you’re seriously into this stuff, you can checkout the changes over the last few years since the Economic & Monetary Union started.

 

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Chris M Skinner

Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...

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