Policy Paper: Economic Prosperity of the Danube Region

The Danube Region exhibits very wide socio-economic disparities. It covers some of the most successful but also some of the poorest regions in the EU. In order to take this heterogeneity into account, we define and assess the following subregions: Member States Area 1 (Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg, and Austria), Member States Area 2 (Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia), Member States Area 3 (Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia), the Accession Countries (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro) and the Neighbouring Countries Ukraine and Moldova. Furthermore we compare the Danube Region with other regional aggregates, namely the OECD and the EU-27, in order to benchmark the Danube Region’s economic prosperity. Regardless of any differences enhancing the economic prosperity is a key objective of all countries within the Danube Region. It is therefore of vital importance to assess the current state of the region and thereby identify challenges and opportunities regarding the region’s prosperity and future development. This is realized below by using appropriate socio-economic indicators.

Müller, Bettina (2014), Policy Paper: Economic Prosperity of the Danube Region, Ministry of Finance and Economics Baden-Wuerttemberg on behalf of the European Commission, Mannheim, Tübingen, Wien