Is Slovakia the Next Portugal? A Comment on “Is Poland the Next Spain?”

In this title, Poland stands for all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe that are joining the European Union, and Spain stands for countries in Southern Europe that joined in the 1970s and early 1980s. The authors look at the successful economic convergence of the Southerners, as a guide to the current prospects of the Easterners. Although they are not the first to make the analogy, their updated perspective on the numbers is indeed a useful contribution. The first question that occurred to me when I saw the title was: why Poland, in particular, and why Spain? Perhaps it is because they are both Catholic. After all, the authors pronounce Ireland an honorary member of the latter group (“a Southerner in spirit”). Or is that they both have provinces named Galicia? More likely, Poland and Spain are singled out in the title merely because they are the representatives of their respective groups that have the largest populations. It could as easily have been “Is Slovakia the next Portugal? ” Country size is a topic to which I will return below. European convergence over the last half-century is indeed a remarkable phenomenon, compared to the experience of other continents, most dramatically Africa