The Homa Files

Amid the Brexit hysteria over the weekend, Google reported that – in Britain – the most googled questions were:

(1) How will Brexit effect me?”, and

(2) “What is the EU?”

Worldwide – and, probably among pontificating blowhard pundits — it was simply “What is the EU?”.

As a service to loyal readers, here are some key EU statistics.

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Some facts worth noting:

Total GDP for the 28 EU countries is only about 10% more than the U.S. GDP ($18.5 trillion to $16.8)

The Top 5 EU economies – Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain – account for more than 70% of the EU’s GDP.

Together,, the UK and Germany account for almost 40% of EU GDP

Specifically, the UK’s GDP is roughly 16% …. but, the UK only got 8% of the votes in the EP (European Parliament)

And, there’s more …

The smallest 7 EU economies account for less than 1.5% of the EU’s total GDP

Despite their limited economic contribution, the 7 smallest economies get 36  EP votes … 7 more than the UK.

Hmmm.

As psychologist Fabio Sani of Scotland’s University of Dundee opined in Time:

“Social researchers know that identity with a group is normally stronger when one has a sense of having a strong voice within that group … many of the anti-European Union people wanted to exit because they felt that the U.K. doesn’t have a strong voice in Europe.”

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click for the entire EU Summary PDF

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This entry was posted on June 27, 2016 at 7:35 am and is filed under Brexit, EU - European Union. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.