If this is the EU’s idea of a “level playing field”, heaven help them

Facts4EU.Org exposes the latest average hourly earnings across EU countries

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2021

Latest official EU figures show what a nonsense the EU’s “level playing field” really is

Why it’s better to employ in Brexit Britain than in the EU – Part Two

On Tuesday we published our research into the non-wage hourly labour costs across the European Union, showing how the UK’s companies have a competitive edge over French-based companies. In today’s report we look purely at average hourly wages and salaries across the EU bloc. How much are people paid in each country, on average?

The EU has spent a great deal of time talking about its concept of a “level playing field”, insisting that the United Kingdom match the EU in its policies in the realms of state aid and other factors. It therefore seems fair to interrogate the EU’s own latest data to see how “level” is the “playing field” in the EU when it comes to something as basic as how much people are paid.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

Average hourly wages/salaries across the EU in 2020

  • Lowest: Bulgaria - €5.40 (£4.66) per hour
  • Highest: Denmark - €39.40 (£33.97) per hour
  • The average salary for one Dane would cover the average salaries of seven Bulgarians combined

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org - click to enlarge

[Source: Latest official EU data for 2020, published 31 Mar 2021. Note: The figure for Greece is for 2019.]

These are the EU’s own official figures for 2020

The results of our research are above and they relate to last year, 2020. What they show is just how absurd the EU’s whole idea of a “level playing field” really is.

In the services sector the wage bill is often the highest component in the variable cost base for a business. In the manufacturing sector it is highly significant, after materials and other manufacturing costs.

For completeness, the EU does not report the UK’s average hourly earnings for 2020 but the figure for 2019 was €23.40 (£20.17) per hour. With the UK Home Office stating that more than five million EU citizens having applied for permanent residency so far, it is perhaps not surprising that UK salaries are so far below those in comparable EU countries. There can surely be no doubt that the plentiful supply of labour from the EU has depressed wages in the UK for many years.

Observations

With the average Dane being paid over seven times the salary of the average Bulgarian, Facts4EU.Org has exposed the propaganda published by the EU Commission over the years of the Brexit negotiations.

It is not credible for the Commission to talk as if the EU is one country - as they consistently do - when such disparities exist within the individual nations of the bloc itself. For the Commission to go on to insist that the United Kingdom, a newly independent country again, should somehow follow EU ‘standards’ in order to trade with the EU quite simply beggars belief.

Not only does this represent fiction when it comes to matters like corporation tax (ask the Irish government about that one) but we have shown how something as basic as people’s average income is as uneven in the EU27 as could be imagined.

Despite the Commission’s best endeavours – and those of the fanatical supra-statists in the EU Parliament such as Guy Verhofstadt – the EU countries themselves are not even close to finding any form of “level playing field” within their own bloc.

The next time Lord Frost is in any meeting with the EU Commissioners and one of these technocrats mentions “level playing field”, we suggest he just smiles and slides a copy of our chart across the table.

Where would we be without you, our readers?

Producing reports like the one above take time and they are unique. No-one at the BBC seems to be the least bit interested in investigating and revealing information like this to the public. If fighting for British sovereignty and freedom is important to you, please read on.

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[ Sources: EU Commission official statistics agency ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Thur 08 Apr 2021

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