Alivox on Europe

I consider myself a Europeanist; I would like to see Europe get its act together, prosper, and play a constructive role in the world. But I'm pessimistic about the motivation of Europeans to address seriously the issues they face. To me, they seem far more determined to hold on to as much as they can of their past wealth, importance and glory than to move forward to a glorious future.

This page is written as a program to get Europe out of its rut.

The Present

Scope of Europe

The common geographical definition of Europe includes everything attached to Asia west of the Urals, plus nearby islands. The eastern border runs along the ridge of the Ural mountains, placing the Pechora and Volga basins on the European side. In the southeast, the ridge of the Caucasus mountains leaves Georgia and Azerbaijan outside of Europe, while the Bosporus and Dardanelles form the border within Turkey.

European islands include the archipelagos of Novaya Zemlya, Franz-Josef Land, Svalbard, Jan Mayen, Iceland (but not Greenland), the Faroes, Shetlands, Orkneys, Hebrides, Azores, Madeira, Canaries and almost all the islands of the Mediterranean (but not, for example, Djerba). In some cases, the justification for inclusion of an archipelago in Europe is more historical than geographical.

Historically, Christian Europe is inseparable from the Muslim side of the Mediterranean, from Morocco to Turkey: those lands were once Christian, and Pagan before that, and they share the same history, from classical Hellenistic culture to Abrahamic religion (which both have spread much further). Having said that, Europe is basically the Christian side of the ancient Roman world.

It should go without saying that territories outside of Europe do not become part of Europe as a result of political possession by a European nation: this category includes 12 British Overseas Territories, 11 French DOM/COM/TOMs, Spanish Ceuta and Melilla, Antarctica, and of course all of Russia east of the Urals. Likewise, Turkish possession of territory west of the Bosporus and the northern half of Cyprus do not remove them from Europe.

Current Political Divisions: Nations

Currently, Europe is divided into 53 nations. That count includes a united Cyprus. It also includes both Russia and Turkey, even though both nations extend well beyond Europe. The tables below include only their European populations and proportional fractions of their GDPs.

Eleven of the nations on this list are microstates:

Code	English Name	Population (k)
je	Jersey	87
im	Isle of Man	79
ad	Andorra	75
gg	Guernsey	62
fo	Faroes	49
li	Liechtenstein	35
mc	Monaco	33
sm	San Marino	31
gi	Gibraltar	29
ax	Åland	27
va	Vatican	1
Total		508

Here are the other 42 nations, sorted by population:

Code	English Name	Population (millions)	GDP (US$ billions)	per capita (US$ thousands)	Life Expectancy (years)	Median Age (years)
ru	European Russia	103.0	1152	11.2	65.5	37.3
de	Germany	82.6	2605	31.5	79.4	42.1
fr	France	61.6	1900	30.8	80.7	38.9
gb	Great Britain	60.8	1912	31.5	79.4	38.9
it	Italy	58.9	1727	29.3	80.5	42.0
ua	Ukraine	46.2	364	7.9	67.9	38.9
es	Spain	44.3	1145	25.9	80.9	38.8
pl	Poland	38.1	526	13.8	75.6	36.8
ro	Romania	21.4	204	9.5	72.5	36.7
nl	Netherlands	16.4	524	31.9	79.8	39.1
gr	Greece	11.1	261	23.4	79.5	40.1
pt	Portugal	10.6	210	19.8	78.1	39.1
be	Belgium	10.5	338	32.3	79.4	40.3
cz	Czech Republic	10.2	199	19.5	76.5	38.9
hu	Hungary	10.0	180	17.9	73.3	38.7
rs	Serbia	7.7	40	5.2	74.0	36.6
by	Belarus	9.7	80	8.3	69.0	37.4
tr	European Turkey	9.3	76	8.2	71.8	26.7
se	Sweden	9.1	284	31.1	80.9	40.2
at	Austria	8.4	287	34.3	79.8	40.1
bg	Bulgaria	7.6	77	10.1	73.0	40.8
ch	Switzerland	7.5	246	32.9	81.7	40.1
dk	Denmark	5.4	196	36.0	78.3	39.5
sk	Slovakia	5.4	93	17.3	74.7	35.6
fi	Finland	5.3	172	32.6	79.3	40.9
no	Norway	4.7	207	44.1	80.2	38.0
hr	Croatia	4.6	58	12.7	75.7	40.6
ie	Ireland	4.3	180	41.9	78.9	33.4
ba	Bosnia	3.9	26	6.6	74.9	37.1
md	Moldova	3.8	9	2.4	68.9	32.5
lt	Lithuania	3.4	53	15.6	73.0	37.9
al	Albania	3.2	18	5.6	76.4	28.6
lv	Latvia	2.3	32	14.1	72.7	39.3
is	Kosovo	2.2	11	36.5	81.8	34.2
mk	Macedonia	2.0	17	8.3	74.2	34.3
si	Slovenia	2.0	46	23.0	77.9	40.2
ee	Estonia	1.3	24	18.0	71.4	38.9
cy	Cyprus	0.9	19	22.2	79.0	35.3
me	Montenegro	0.6	11	18.4	74.5	35.1
lu	Luxembourg	0.5	33	70.7	78.7	38.3
mt	Malta	0.4	8	19.7	79.4	37.6
is	Iceland	0.3	11	36.5	81.8	34.2
eu	Total	702	15561	22.1	75.8	38.9

Source: United Nations, 2006/2007 data
Kosovo's figures are, except for population, Serbia's
GDP is from the IMF, calculated according to Purchasing Power Parity

For comparison:

Code	English Name	Population	GDP	per capita	Life Exp.	Median Age
ru	All Russia	142.5	1576	11.1	65.5	37.3
tr	All Turkey	74.9	610	5.8	71.8	26.7
ge	Georgia	4.4	16	3.6	71.0	35.5
am	Armenia	3.0	13	4.3	72.0	31.7
az	Azerbaijan	8.5	31	3.6	67.5	27.7
us	USA	305.8	10112	33.1	78.2	36.0
cn	China	1328.6	6716	5.1	73.0	32.5
in	India	1169.0	2809	2.4	64.7	23.8
jp	Japan	128.0	3409	26.6	82.6	42.9
ww	Whole World	6671.2	61258	9.2	67.2	28.0

Regions

For purposes of this article, I've divided Europe up into five regions:

Region	Nations	Population	Total GDP
Central	de pl cz at ch sk li	152.2	3956
Southwest	fr it es pt mt ad mc sm gi va	175.9	4990
Northwest	gb nl be se dk fi no ie lt lv ee lu is je im gg fo ax	124.6	3966
Northeast	ru ua by	158.9	2020
Southeast	ro gr hu rs tr bg hr ba md al ko mk si cy me	90.3	977

The Southeast region, the Balkans, is smaller, poorer and more fragmented than the others, and should be considered a half-region. Were Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan (all already members of the Council of Europe) to be considered European nations, they would complete the Southeast region.

Region	Nations	Population	Total GDP
Southeast	+ tr ge am az	171.8	1571
Total	54 C of E	783.5	16155

The European Union

The EU unites about half of Europe in a loose alliance, offering a common market, common travel controls, free internal migration, and substantial cooperation in numerous domains. Thirteen of the 27 member nations (plus some other nations) also share a common currency, the Euro €, but coordination of foreign and security policy has yet to flourish. More importantly, integration of the private sector has barely begun, with very few transnational firms (e.g. whose management and board is not dominated by one nation) and little integration at the professional level. Lack of a common language is an important factor in this problem.

Euro members	at ax be de es fi fr gr ie it lu nl pt si
other Union members	bg cy cz dk ee gb gi hu lt lv mt pl ro se sk
other Euro users	ad ko mc me sm va
other non members	al ba by ch fo gg hr im is je li md mk no rs ru tr ua

The Future

The rest of this article assumes that Northeast Europe (Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) and Asia Minor (Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) will remain outside of the European Union for the foreseeable future. However, I think most of the remaining European nations will join both the European Union and the Euro over the course of the next few years. Even those that may elect not to become formal members, such as Switzerland for the UE and Sweden for the Euro, will be considered members de facto if not de jure.

Union	Regions	Population	Total GDP
Future EU	C+SW+NW+SE	543.0	13889

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