Europe, eh? Good for nothing, innit? That’s the prevailing narrative you hear these days. But, as so often, this is a matter of perspective. The chart above, plundered courtesy of Anne Applebaum’s twitter feed, shows the respective growths of GDP per capita in Poland and the Ukraine since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact.
One of these countries, as you can see, has done rather better than the other. It’s the country that has made a better fist of democracy. And it’s the country that is a member of the European Union.
Which is one reason why Britain should still be in favour of expanding EU membership. There are doubtless many things that explain why Poland has done so much better than the Ukraine but it is implausible to suppose that being a part of the Brussels Club has played no part in Poland’s success.
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