1

May 2012

Why Europe should not be centralised

Roland Vaubel

Regional integration may mean market integration or political integration.

The integration of markets is not only efficient but also liberalizing. It requires

the removal of national barriers to trade, capital movements, migration and the

exchange of information. The national governments mutually agree to reduce

their interference in the market and give their citizens more freedom. Market

integration is unequivocally beneficial.

Political integration, by contrast, is simply another word for political

centralization. The agglomeration of political power at the center or at the

regional level gives politicians, bureaucrats and activist judges – i.e., the state –

more power over the citizens. There are two main reasons for this.

Interjurisdictional Competition

First, if policies are centralized, the citizens find it harder to escape from

excessive taxation and regulation. If the exit mechanism is blocked, tax rates and

regulations increase.

Second, if policies are equalized at the centre or at the regional level, the

citizens can no longer compare the performance of their government with that of

their neighbours. As the citizens’ cost of political information rises, they lose

control of their governments. Yardstick competition can no longer serve as a

“mechanism of discovery” (Hayek).

Both of these objections to political centralization have a long tradition.

David Hume (1742) argued that “a number of neighbouring and independent

states” helps to overcome “the restraint of authority” but he was mainly

2

concerned with innovation in the arts and sciences. Charles Montesquieu (1748:

283f.) focused on political freedom:

“In Europe, the natural divisions form many medium-sized

states… This is what has formed a genius for liberty… In

Asia one has always seen great empires… Therefore, power

should always be despotic in Asia”.

In 1778, two years after the American Declaration of Independence, Turgot

predicted:

“The asylum which (the American people) opens to the

oppressed of all nations must console the earth. The ease

with which it will now be possible to take advantage of this

situation, and thus to escape from the consequences of bad

government, will oblige the European governments to be

just and enlightened” (p. 389).”

Immanuel Kant (1784: 31) analyzed the competition among rulers:

“Now the states are already in the present day involved in

such close relations with each other that none of them can

pause or slacken in its internal civilization without losing

power and influence in relation to the rest… Civil liberty

cannot now be easily assailed without inflicting such

damage as will be felt in all trades and industries and

especially in commerce”.

Edward Gibbon (1787: vol. I, p. 100) compared 18th century Europe with the

Roman Empire:

“The division of Europe into a number of independent

states… is productive of the most beneficial consequences

to liberty and mankind… but the empire of the Romans

filled the whole world”.

In the 19th century, Lord Acton (1877) applied the idea to democracy:

“If the distribution of power among the several parts of the

state is the most efficient restraint of monarchy, the

distribution of power among several states is the best check

of democracy. By multiplying centres of government and

discussion it promotes the diffusion of political knowledge

and the maintenance of healthy and independent opinion. It

is the protectorate of minorities and the consecration of self-

3

government” (p. 21). “It is bad to be oppressed by a

minority but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority” (p.

13).

Max Weber (1923: 249) explains the industrial revolution:

“The competitive struggle [among the European nation

states] created the largest opportunities for modern western

capitalism. The separate states had to compete for mobile

capital, which dictated to them the conditions under which it

would assist them to power”.

Subsequently, many modern economists (e.g., Charles Tiebout, George Stigler,

James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Friedrich Hayek1) and economic historians

(Eric Jones, Douglass North, William McNeill, John Hall, Daniel Chirot, Nathan

Rosenberg, L.E. Birdzell, Paul Kennedy, Stanley Engerman, Joel Mokyr and

David Landes) have analyzed the benefits of interjurisdictional competition in

theory and history.2 I close with a quotation from Landes (1998: 37f.):

“Ironically, then, Europe’s great good fortune lay in the fall

of Rome and the weakness and division that ensued… The

Roman dream of unity, authority and order (the pax

Romana) remained, indeed it has persisted to the present.

After all, one has usually seen fragmentation as a great

misfortune, as a recipe for conflict… And yet…

fragmentation was the strongest brake on willful, oppressive

behavior. Political rivalry and the right of exit made all the

difference”.

The link between market integration and political integration

Even though market integration and political integration are very different and

in some respects opposites, they are linked in two ways.

First, if the governments of different states agree to abolish barriers to trade,

for example, their agreement has to be enforced. This may require an

international institution. True, the enforcement may also be left to the national

1 Hayek (1976) extended the idea to currency competition among central banks.

2 For a comprehensive overview of the history of thought on interjurisdictional competition see Vaubel (2008a).

4

courts. Anybody who is hurt by a trade restriction may be entitled to file a

complaint. However, individual citizens or firms do not internalize the full

damage due to such trade restrictions. It may be helpful to have an independent

public prosecutor, and the most independent prosecutor is a supra-national one.

If the judges of the national courts are not sufficiently independent of their

governments or biased in favour of the politicians who have chosen them, there

may even be a case for an international court or panel of arbitration. Moreover,

the contracting parties may wish to establish an international secretariat which

implements their decisions. However, once they confer independent executive

powers to this institution, the bureaucrats working in this institution will use

their power to bring about an ever closer union.

The second connection between market integration and political integration is

less well understood. As the international integration of markets progresses,

international policy competition increases. Markets react more strongly to

national policy mistakes, say, in the field of monetary, fiscal or regulatory

policy. To regain their power over the market, the incumbent politicians of the

member states take more decisions collectively – i.e., collusively. As this raises

the power of the bureaucrats and judges at the regional level they can be relied

upon to enforce the liberalization of international trade. International market

integration drives the national governments squarely into their hands. The result

is centralization of monetary, fiscal and regulatory policy regardless of whether

it is desired by the voters or not.

There is mounting evidence that the preferences of EU political decision

makers diverge widely and systematically from the wishes of the citizens.

Identical questions have been put to both groups at the same point in time3.

Table 1 shows that, with regard to the three most important issues, decision

making at the EU level was preferred by 54 per cent (a majority) of the members

of the European Parliament but only by 42 per cent (a minority) of the citizens.

3 Such surveys are rare. Eurobarometer, the Commission’s institute for opinion polls, does not ask such questions.

5

The Gallup Poll in Table 2 indicates that 92 per cent of EU and national

parliamentarians but only 48 per cent of the general public supported EU

membership of their country. 90 per cent of the parliamentarians but only 43 per

cent of the general public believed that their country benefits from membership

in the European Union. Table 3 reveals that 65 per cent of the top officials of the

EU Commission and the EU parliamentarians but only 46 per cent of the

citizens believed that the EU should strengthen its military power in order to

play a larger role in the world. Moreover, there have been eleven referenda in

which national electorates have rejected proposals for political centralization at

the European level.4 In 2007, 75 per cent of EU citizens favoured a referendum

on the Lisbon Treaty, and no more than 41 per cent would vote for a treaty

transferring more powers to the EU.5

International organizations are far removed from the wishes and the control of

the voters. Owing to the long chain of delegation, high information costs

(including language barriers) and sheer distance, the principal-agent problem is

likely to be severe.

Diversity

From a classical liberal perspective, political centralization also ignores the

differences in preferences. The classical liberal respects individual preferences

and wants them to be satisfied as much as possible. They are the ultimate

measuring-rod. The most decentralized system of decision-making is the market.

But differences in preferences and needs are just as important in the field of

public policy. The demand for public goods and services and the supply of

voluntary transfers depend on income levels, geographic conditions and social

traditions which have shaped local preferences.

4 Norway in 1972 and 1994, Switzerland in 1992 and 2001, Denmark in 1992 and 2000, Ireland in 2001 and 2008, Sweden in 2003, France and the Netherlands in 2005.

5 See Haller (2008, 321).

6

Income is the factor that can be measured most easily. In the European Union

of 27, for example, income per head is about seven times as high in the most

prosperous member country (Luxembourg) as it is in the poorest member

country (Bulgaria). Between the richest and the poorest region of the EU, i.e.,

between Inner London and Severozapaden in Bulgaria, the ratio is as much as

13.

High-income earners demand more leisure, are more averse to inflation and

more willing to pay for a natural environment, for example.

As regards working time, the European Social Survey (2010) asked the

following question: “How many hours a week, if any, would you choose to

work, bearing in mind that your earnings would go up or down according to how

many hours you work?” (question G 72). The country averages are presented in

Table 4. They range from 40.3 hours in Bulgaria to 22 hours in Cyprus.

Preferred working time is highest in low-income countries like Bulgaria,

Portugal, Estonia, Slovenia, Poland and Hungary (in this order) and lowest –

except for Cyprus6 - in high-income countries like the Netherlands, the UK,

Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Belgium and Sweden (in this order). The

correlation coefficient between the prefer number of working hours and per

capita GDP in 2010 is -0,63 which is significant at the one per cent level.

The European Union has adopted a directive (93/104/EC) limiting working

time to 48 hours per week. As the last column of Table 4 demonstrates,

however, many respondents prefer to work more than 48 hours. This holds for

all member states. The share is largest in Poland (35.8 per cent), Hungary (25.9

per cent), the Czech Republic (24.6 per cent), Estonia (19.2 per cent), Slovakia

and Bulgaria (both 15.8 per cent). The UK had contested the directive in the

Council and had filed a complaint with the European Court of Justice because

Commission and Council had based the measure on the Union’s competency for

6 In Cyprus, 253 out of 655 respondents declared that they would prefer not to work at all and, by implication, not to earn any income from labour. This explains the low average of preferred working hours in Cyprus.

7

health at the workplace which allows qualified majority decisions. But the Court

– as usual – sided with the Commission.

In the eurozone, there are striking differences with regard to inflation aversion.

In 2011, 25 per cent of Austrians but only 6 per cent of Slovenians said that

inflation was one of the two most serious policy problems (Eurobarometer 2011,

question QA7a1). In 2007-10, the percentage was 41 among Austrians but only

18 per cent among Spaniards. In 1996, 62 per cent of West Germans but only 18

per cent of the French respondents wished to keep inflation rather than

unemployment down (Jayadev 2006, Table 1). Hayo (1998) also showed that an

identical inflation rate worries people to a very different degree: Germans and

Dutch respondents were most concerned, Portuguese and Greeks cared least.

The problem is complicated by the fact that, owing to the Balassa effect, fast-

growing members of a monetary union tend to have higher CPI inflation rates

than mature economies. (Do not mistake this for changes in competitiveness.) In

2008, for example, Estonia, which had a currency board based on the euro,

suffered from 10.8 per cent inflation, while the Netherlands, Portugal and

Germany had inflation rates below three per cent. Or, over a longer period, from

2001 to 2008, the average compound rate of inflation in Greece, Ireland and

Portugal exceeded three per cent, while in Finland, and Germany it was below

two per cent. To some extent, people in the faster growing, high-inflation

countries may also be less inflation-averse but only by coincidence would these

differences cancel out.

The demand for a natural environment differs considerably between countries

in Europe. In Denmark, Luxembourg and Sweden more than 25 per cent of the

respondents say that the environment is more important for the quality of life

than economic factors. In Portugal, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and

Hungary less than ten per cent take this view (Eurobarometer 62.1). Several

econometric studies demonstrate that per capita or individual income has a

8

significantly positive effect on the willingness to pay for a natural environment.7

The country dummies assume the largest coefficients for Germany, Austria and

Finland and the smallest for Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria8. Some forms of

pollution – for example, global warming – affect all countries indiscriminately

so that abatement is a global or international good. But this is not true for all

environmental problems – e.g., noise, smog, most lakes and the quality of

drinking water, which is regulated by the EU.

Income also affects attitudes towards the quality of the workplace and various

types of risk – e.g., the risk of dismissal or minor health risks. Many of the fifty-

plus labour market regulations which the EU has adopted since the nineties are

problematic in this respect. Moreover, attitudes toward labour market regulation

differ widely among the member states – with fairly liberal conditions in the

UK, Denmark and Ireland, and highly restrictive regimes in Portugal, Spain,

Italy and Greece.9 Since the Single European Act (1987) and the Treaty of

Maastricht (1993) introduced qualified majority voting on various types of

labour market regulation, the majority of highly-regulated member states have

imposed their high level of regulation on the more liberal minority in order to

improve their own competitiveness. In fact, the common EU regulations tend to

be even stricter because upward “harmonization” removes the competitive

pressure from the minority. In the economic literature, this is called the “strategy

of rising rivals’ cost”. It has also been applied to the arts market (“Droit de

Suite”) and is now being extended to financial market regulation10

.

Income differences also militate against a levelling of welfare payments and

mandatory social insurance benefits. Transfers and benefits must be related to

local market wages. Otherwise, moral hazard abounds. Moreover, the

willingness to give to the poor depends on the donor’s income, and different

7 E.g., Dunlap, Mertig (1996), Bateman et al. (1999), Haller, Troy (2003), Franzen, Meyer (2010), Kollmann, Reichl, Schneider (2012).

8 Kollmann et al. (2012) analyzing the results of the European Value Survey (2008). People were asked whether they would give part of their income if they were certain that the money would be used to prevent environmental pollution.

9 See Vaubel (2008b).

10 See Vaubel (2010).

9

donors wish to give to different recipients as the analysis of bilateral

development aid demonstrates11

.

Subsidies to agriculture may be justified, if at all, on social or environmental

grounds. If redistribution is the aim, the welfare payments ought to be geared to

the local wage rate which the recipients could earn in alternative employment. If

the motivation is ecological, the appropriate compensation for environmental

services depends on the local demand for these services. The willingness to pay

is higher in high income regions and close to urban agglomerations. It follows

that transfer payments to farmers ought to be differentiated on a geographic

basis and that agricultural policy ought to be decentralized.

Finally taxation: its optimal level and structure depends on a variety of factors

which differ among countries. The demand for public goods and the supply of

voluntary transfers is a function of income. The need for public infrastructure

also rises with population density and geographic barriers. The optimal amount

of public investment affects the optimal amount of public borrowing. The

optimal pattern of taxation depends on the price elasticity of the tax base, which

is larger in small and open economies, on the efficiency of tax administration

and on tax morale. If tax morale is low, the value-added tax with its cascade of

rebates is likely to be more efficient than income tax.

There is a widespread view that international (or interregional) differences in

taxation, subsidies and regulations distort competition and are incompatible with

an efficient allocation of resources. This is a fallacy. If preferences differ,

optimal policies differ, and it is the suppression of these differences which is

inefficient. The preferences of the people are part of a country’s natural

endowment and determine its comparative advantage. Under these conditions

accusations of social or ecological “dumping” are misguided: the low-tax, low-

regulation countries do not sell below cost but their cost is lower.

11

Kaltefleiter (1995, e.g., Table 6). Partly for this reason, foreign policy preferences differ. In the UK, Sweden and Denmark less than 45 per cent of the respondents favour a common foreign policy of the EU, while in Bulgaria, Cyprus and Slovakia support is overwhelming, exceeding 80 per cent.

10

The more liberal countries are often accused of nationalism or selfishness.

This, too, is a misconception as preferences differ. The nationalist is an admirer

of the state, in his case the nation state. The classical liberal distrusts the state.

The nationalist opposes centralization at the supranational regional level but

welcomes it at the level of the nation state. The classical liberal is consistent in

his plea for decentralization. He also wishes to transfer powers from the national

to the provincial to the local level. The alternative to regional integration is not

primarily the nation state but decentralization – including devolution, secession

and separation. The dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the critique of European

centralization, for example, are simply two sides of the same coin. The

nationalist is proud of his own country and thinks it is better than others. The

classical liberal may not be proud of anything. He may be indifferent among

countries or prefer a foreign country. But he insists that individuals and groups

of individuals differ and that each of them ought to be free to pursue his or her

own goals. The nationalist wants his nation to prevail over other nations, reaping

distributional gains at the expense of other nations. The classical liberal aims at

“Pareto-improvements” which make at least one person better off but nobody

worse off. It is not selfish to pursue one’s aims without bothering others. If

people have different preferences, it is not altruistic to force them under one

yoke. As Europe is now learning, uniformity is a recipe for resentment – not for

mutual understanding among the peoples.

Regional integration by a number of countries is usually at the expense of the

rest of the world. This is even true for market integration: customs unions and

free trade areas divert trade from third countries. But regional political

integration is almost always directed against the outside world. This is legitimate

if a group of countries try to defend themselves against a foreign aggressor. But

many advocates of regional political integration in Europe want to unite against

America. The US is not an aggressor. They have not overcome nationalism but

11

are merely transferring it to the European level. They are Euro-chauvinists. The

classical liberal, by contrast, is a cosmopolitan.

But are there not international externalities which ought to be internalized?

Yes, but this argument, too, is frequently misunderstood and misapplied.

International external effects

The main misunderstanding is the confusion between interdependence through

the market and non-market interdependence. Only non-market interdependence

– like transnational pollution – requires international action. Non-market

externalities ought to be internalized through international negotiations, and the

agreement may have to be monitored and enforced by some international

organization.

Not so interdependence through the market – unless governments make a

mistake in the first place. Demanders and suppliers, foreigners and residents are

all interdependent through the price mechanism. International arbitrage is not a

cause of inefficiency but a precondition for efficiency. If a consumer and a

producer conclude a contract, both sides gain. If the producer, wanting to

maximize his profits, finds a way of lowering his marginal costs, he does not

only raise his producer surplus but also – involuntarily – other people’s

consumer surplus. This, of course, is Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”.

International interdependence through the market cannot justify

intergovernmental coordination or regional political integration unless

governments have more targets than instruments (Oudiz 1988). This follows

from Robert Mundell’s “assignment solution” (1962). If the number of targets is

no larger than the number of instruments, each institution should assign its

instrument to the target for which it has a “comparative advantage” (Mundell).

For example, each central bank tries to stabilize the purchasing power of its

currency, each fiscal authority optimizes the financing of its budget, local wage

12

adjustments take care of local full employment etc. Such a decentralized policy

assignment is preferable to centralization or intergovernmental coordination for

a number of reasons:

1. Each policy maker can specialize in the use of one instrument.

2. All he has to know is how his instrument affects his target.

3. There is a single solution – not an array of possible solutions on a contract

curve. Thus, the market faces less policy risk.

4. If a target has been missed, the voters know who is responsible and ought

to be punished.

5. The decentralization and diversification of policies reduces aggregate risk

to the world economy.

6. A multitude of policy experiments facilitates comparisons, learning and

innovation.

Thus, interdependence through the market is not a valid justification for regional

political integration. Market integration requires the removal of national

restrictive policies but not the introduction of common policies.

The real problem is non-market interdependence. But not all non-market

externalities lead to inefficiencies. They may not be “Pareto-relevant” because

they do not “affect the margin”. For example, a small country may be protected

by a large country without benefitting from the latter’s marginal defence effort.

The small country, then, is a free rider but since it is not benefitting at the

margin, no inefficiency results.

Which Pareto-relevant international externalities justify regional political

integration? If the external benefits from defence are relevant at the margin, as is

likely, defence is a candidate. But the external benefits are not confined to the

EU. They accrue to all like-minded countries including the US, Canada etc.

Thus, a more encompassing international alliance like NATO is preferable on

externality grounds. Analogous considerations apply to foreign-policy

coordination.

13

There are many other examples of such wider externalities, for example, ocean

and air pollution, property rights for ocean fishing, competition policy, the

promotion of basic research, the prevention of epidemic diseases, the fight

against international crime and terrorism and – to the extent to which donors

agree – development aid. In all these fields, the externalities are worldwide, and

European solutions are likely to be inadequate. Wherever feasible, global

organizations (like the United Nations, the World Health Organization, Interpol)

or at least common institutions of all like-minded industrial countries (like the

OECD) would, in principle, be preferable.

To avoid an undue concentration of political power and a centralizing

dynamic, it is also important to have a considerable number of different

international organizations which specialize in their sphere of competence and

comprise different memberships reflecting the range of the externality in

question.

International non-market externalities may not only transcend the borders of

the European Union, they may alternatively be limited to a subgroup or pairs of

countries. Pollution of rivers (the Rhine) or large lakes (Lake Constance) is a

good example. International roads, railway lines, pipelines and other networks

are also cases in point. Finally, the problems of peripheral regions – to the extent

that they require international action at all – are solved best on a bilateral basis.

Outlook

The events of the last two years may prove to be a watershed in the history of

the European Union. The sovereign debt crisis in the southern euro-zone and the

never ending bailout politics have disillusioned many Europeans. Taxpayers in

the northern euro-zone are protesting, and those outside the euro-zone are no

longer eager to join. People in the more prosperous member countries had

always been willing to give development aid to the poorer member states

through the structural funds, agricultural subsidies and the European Investment

14

Bank. But this time they are not asked to pay because the recipients are poor but

because their governments have behaved irresponsibly. Moreover, the bailout is

contrary to the treaties (Art. 125 TFEU). The legal basis claimed by the

Commission and the Council (Art. 122 TFEU) is obviously inapplicable.

Monetary financing of government debt in particular is prohibited by Art. 123

TFEU), and the governments are obliged “not to seek to influence the members

of the decision-making bodies of the European Central Bank” (Art. 130 TFEU).

The German Chancellor tries to justify the bailouts as “ultima ratio”. In any

case, the rule of law has broken down. This will have long term consequences.

Mutual trust has been destroyed.

At the receiving end, people are upset by the harsh policy conditions which the

donors attach to their subsidized loans, and continued membership in the euro-

zone is increasingly regarded as an obstacle to recovery.

Cheap credits to governments are a very expensive way of bailing out banks.

The euro-zone repeats the mistakes of the Reagan administration (Regan,

Sprinkel, Baker, Brady) in the 1980s – except that the latter did not violate the

law by calling in the IMF and the World Bank. This time, the Obama

administration and the British government call upon the Eurozone-countries to

increase the “firepower” of their bailout funds. Their aim is to reduce the losses

to American and US banks with taxpayers’ money from the Eurozone. They

support the centralizers in Brussels and the Eurozone. (Quite frankly, George

Osborne and David Cameron are betraying their friends on the continent.)

When the European Union was enlarged in 2004, the resulting increase in

heterogeneity was expected to slow down centralization. Experience so far does

not confirm this hypothesis. Table 5 shows that, in all eastern European

countries, people have much more confidence in the EU institutions than in their

national political institutions (parliament and government). This is not true for

eight of the old member states. Similarly, the eastern European member states

15

contest council decisions much less frequently than the other countries do.12

There is more than one explanation for these findings. Eastern Europeans are

used to distrusting their governments. They are impatiently awaiting a western

standard of living. Being new, they do not know very much about the realities of

the European Union. Their politicians are still learning how to behave in EU

politics. Their countries are net recipients from the EU budget. They are grateful

for, but also believe to be dependent on, EU support. Most of them do not dare

to object.

The initiative for reform is more likely to come from some of the old member

states – especially net contributing countries such as the UK, the Netherlands,

Sweden, France, Austria, Denmark and Finland. (The German government

remains a pathological case.) The multi-year financial frameworks have to be

adopted unanimously. Negotiations for the period 2014-20 are already

underway. If there is no agreement, the budget will be frozen, i.e., there will be

no increase. Will unanimity be attained, and, if so, what strings will be attached?

12

While the old member states on average vote „no“ 4.2 times a year, the equivalent for the new member states is 2.9. For abstentions, the frequencies are 3.3 and 2.6, respectively. The countries most likely to object are Sweden (11.3), Denmark (10.5), the Netherlands (8.6), Finland (5.6), the UK (5.3), Estonia and Lithuania (4.9), Poland (4.5) and Latvia (4.1). The countries least likely to vote “no” are Luxembourg (0.0), Cyprus, France, Hungary and Ireland (each 1.1). See Hosli, Mattila, Uriot (2011, Table 1).

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Table 1

Preferred levels of decision-making for the three most important issues

in ten EU member states (percentages based on responses)

Preferred

Governmental

Level

Mass public Members of

national

parliaments

Members of

European

Parliament

Regional 12 7 3

National 45 48 43

European 42 44 54

Source: Schmitt, Thomassen (1999), European Representation Study, Table 3.1.

Table 2

Opinions of the general public and top decision makers

in the European Union (per cent)

issue general public national civil-

servants

parliamentarians

(EU and national) media leaders

support for

EU-membership 48 96 92 91

benefits from

EU-membership 43 92 90 86

Source: EOS Gallup Europe, The European Union: A View from the Top, Special Study, 1996, EU-15.

Table 3

Opinions of the general public, 50 top Commission officials and

203 members of the European Parliament in nine EU member states (per cent)

general public top Commission officials

and euro-parliamentarians

The European Union should strengthen its

military power in order to play a larger role in

the world:

agree strongly 16 31

agree somewhat 30 34

disagree somewhat 30 17

disagree strongly 21 15

don't know 3 2

Source: European Elite Survey, Centre for the Study of Political Change, University of Siena, May to

July 2006 (as published by Roper Center for Public Opinion Research MCMISC 2006-Elite) and

Transatlantic Trends 2006, Topline Data, June 2006

17

Table 4

“How many hours a week, if any, would you choose to work,

bearing in mind that your earnings would go up or down according to how many hours you work?”

Country Average preferred weekly

working hoursa

Average actual weekly

working hoursb

Difference

preferred

minus actual

Share of respondents

preferring more

than 48 hours a week

(per cent)a

Bulgaria 40.3 42.5 - 2.2 15.8

Portugal 38.6 39.0 - 0.4 12.9

Estonia 38.2 38.5 - 0.3 19.2

Slovenia 37.2 40.5 - 3.3 8.4

Poland 37.2 42.0 - 4.8 35.8

Hungary 36.1 41.0 - 4.9 25.9

Norway 34.6 35.0 - 0.4 6.1

Greece 33.5 45.5 -12.0 11.2

Spain 33.4 38.0 - 4.6 3.6

Czech Republic 33.3 41.5. - 8.2 24.6

France 33.3 36.0 - 2.7 6.7

Finland 33.2 37.5 - 4.3 5.7

Slovakia 33.1 41.5 - 8.4 15.8

Sweden 32.7 37.5 - 4.8 4.6

Belgium 32.5 37.5 - 5.0 6.3

Denmark 30.8 34.5 - 3.7 5.3

Germany 29.7 37.0 - 7.3 3.2

Ireland 28.3 35.0 - 6.7 3.9

United Kingdom 26.9 36.5 - 9.6 3.9

Netherlands 24.4 32.0 - 7.6 2.3

Cyprus 22.0 39.5 -17.5 6.4

a calculated from: European Social Survey 2010. Question G72.

b Source: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 5

th European Working Conditions Survey 2010, European

Commission 2012.

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Table 5

Trust in political institutions (in per cent)

Country National

parliament

(1)

National

government

(2)

National

average

(3) = (1)+(2)

2

EU

institutions

(4)

Difference

(3)-(4)

Sweden 73 65 69 46 +23

Austria 64 62 63 45 +18

Luxembourg 62 77 69.5 52 +17.5

Finland 66 62 64 53 +11

Netherlands 63 57 60 50 +10

Germany 46 40 43 35 + 8

Denmark 66 53 59.5 52 + 7.5

UK 29 32 30.5 24 + 6.5

Ireland 39 42 40.5 44 -3.5

Cyprus 44 47 45.5 52 -6.5

France 31 28 29.5 39 -9.5

Estonia 47 56 51.5 61 -9.5

Malta 38 40 39 52 -13

Greece 17 16 16.5 32 -15.5

Spain 21 24 22.5 39 -16.5

Italy 26 24 25 42 -17

Hungary 36 36 36 54 -18

Belgium 45 39 42 61 -19

Portugal 26 20 23 44 -21

Croatia 14 13 13.5 37 -23.5

Poland 26 29 27.5 52 -24.5

Latvia 11 15 13 42 -29

Czech Rep. 12 14 13 45 -32

Slovakia 11 13 12 44 -32

Slovenia 11 13 12 44 -32

Bulgaria 20 30 25 60 -35

Lithuania 8 14 11 52 -41

Romania 13 13 13 62 -49

Source: Eurobarometer 75, May 2011