The impact of the factors on the regional development disparities in the EU-27 member and candidates countries

Abstract

The paper analyses the regional development disparities of the EU-27 member and candidate countries and their factors at the regional level. The author analyses the data published by the European Commission in the Third Report on Economic and Social Cohesion. The analyses deals with descriptive statistical methods and cluster analyses.

The GDP per capita figures of the EU-27 member and candidate countries show that the EU-15 countries have a favourite situation comparing with the new member and candidate countries. In the elimination of the development disparities were the western European countries also more successful as the new member states. Because of the low level of general development the regions of the candidate Balkan countries have a lower level of regional disparities then the other east-European countries. The regional disparities are more serious in the Czeck Republic and in Slovakia where the developed central regions and the less developed rural regions caused that phenomenon. The author investigated the determinants of the spatial disparities on behalf of the following available figures:
• activity rate
• high level educated population rate
• patent number per 1 million inhabitants
• employment rate in the tercier sector
The investigated figures represent the human resource potential of the economy, the scientifictechnological progress and the modernisation level of the economy.
The relation between the income level and the investigated figures show only a loose connection measured with the correlation coefficient. A cluster analyses divided the EU-27 regions in more and less developed regions proved that high activity rate, high rate of educated population, high patent number per 1 million inhabitant and high employment rate in the tercier sector are necessary for achieving a high income level in the regions.

In the developed region’s cluster that consists the regions with the best figure on behalf of all 4 coefficients there are only 29 western-European regions. No one of the eastern-European regions
could be member in the developed region’s cluster.

This fact shows that the elimination of the development disparities between the EU-15 and the east-European countries is possible only in a longer historical process.