The UK continues to slide down the EU Prosperity Rankings, from fifth in 2004 to eleventh in 2008. The British economy is now smaller than the French, though still ahead of the Italian By Download Briefing Note: BN#55
In 2008 the UK traded in deficit with seventeen of its twenty-six EU partners, though the overall deficit with EU-26 narrowed sharply, probably because of the banking crisis. The UK Gross Contribution to EU Institutions continued its inexorable upward march, costing the British taxpayer £45 million per day in 2008. By Download Briefing Note: BN#54
Over the last five years the UK has been practically in balance on its trade with the world outside the EU, but in substantial deficit with the EU. In the next three years the Treasury sees no improvement in the overall UK deficit with the world. By Download Briefing Note: BN#53
Trends discernible in the data time-series set out in the Pink Book 2008 suggest that, by the end of the next Parliament, around two-thirds of British exports will be going outside EU-26 • The proportion of UK exports going to the other 26 EU countries is shrinking. • The proportion of UK exports going to the other [...]
The European Commission’s latest demographic projections go out to 2060. They suggest that, for UK exporters, the rest of the EU will be a sharply-contracting market, with shrinkage comparable to “losing” the whole of Germany. The USA, in contrast, will be an expanding market. • A good proxy for the productive potential of the population is “WAP” [...]
