Comparison of price levels in Europe, 2002

The first estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita adjusted for differences in relative price levels between the 31 countries that took part in the European Comparison Programme (ECP) 2002, reveal only relatively minor changes from the previous year.

This means that Luxembourg still stands out with a very high volume of its GDP per capita, 89 percent ahead of the EU average. The corresponding figure for Norway is 42 percent, whereas Ireland comes third, 26 percent above the average for the EU seen as a whole. The majority of the remaining EU and EFTA countries lie within plus or minus 20 percent of the average of the current EU members.

The results for the EU acceding countries provide an illustration of the heterogeneity in living standards in an expanded EU. The average per capita GDP of the acceding countries is less than half the average of the current 15 members. There are, however, considerable differences between the acceding countries: Whereas Cyprus and Slovenia are ahead of the current EU members Greece and Portugal, Latvia's GDP per capita is a mere 35 percent of the current EU average. In the three candidate countries Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, GDP per capita is even lower.

These preliminary estimates for 2002 are extrapolations based on the 2001 results, and do not contain new price data for 2002. The first results with 2002 survey data included will be available towards the end of the year.

Read more about this topic in Eurostat 's " Statistics in Focus "

Tables:

• Table 1 Volume indices for Gross Domestic Product per capita. Preliminary estimates, 2002. EU15=100