REVEALED: UK firms must compete with EU firms paying 1/5th of UK average earnings

Latest EU earnings data shows how the EU’s ‘Level Playing Field’ is a complete fiction

Facts4EU.Org once again exposes the harsh truth, using the EU’s own latest figures

On Tuesday (16 Mar 2021) the EU released its figures for average monthly earnings in EU countries. It does so every four years but these are always significantly delayed, and this latest set of data from the EU is for 2018.

Fact4EU.Org’s analysis of the figures reveals the true scale of the EU’s deceptive use of the term ‘Level Playing Field’ – a concept it has used over the last five years to trap the UK into an imaginary world where competition between companies must be on “even” terms.

Here is the truth of what UK companies are up against in the EU

Speak to company directors and they will usually tell you that the highest cost in their business is the wages bill. Our analysis of the EU’s latest figures coming out of Brussels shows the enormity of the hill UK businesses have to climb, in order to compete with companies in most parts of the EU.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

UK firms must compete with EU firms paying 1/5th of UK average earnings

20 out of the 27 EU countries have mean (average) monthly earnings BELOW the UK’s
11 of these had average earnings at less than half those in the UK
In the worst case, one EU country is at 1/5th of the average earnings in the UK

Source: Official EU statistics agency report 16 Mar 2021. Data: Mean (average) monthly gross earnings, converted into GBP at 1.166 euros to the pound. The above chart shows the UK and the 20 EU countries with lower average monthly earnings. (For information, Germany's is only marginally above the UK's figure.)

What this means in the real world

Here is an imaginary conversation between a UK supplier and a potential customer:

UK supplier: “So, how many widgets per month would you like to take?”

Customer: “I’m sorry, none. We really like you but we can buy equivalent widgets in the EU for almost half the price.”

And this is only going to get worse

Facts4EU looked at the average monthly earnings in the five countries slated to join the European Union in the coming years. The five countries in the EU's official accession list are Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Turkey. The latest available data from the EU shows that the average earnings in these countries stand at just £512 per month. This compares with £2,794 in the UK.

Facts4EU.Org asked two individuals prominent in business for their views on our report

Businessman and former Brexit Party MEP Ben Habib commented:

“The EU has never been a level playing field.
“It is by definition a trade cartel designed to incubate its political experiment of creating a new federal Europe. We know this not just from the evidence revealed in this report on wages but by the waves of immigration from these countries into the UK.
“That is the other side of the same coin revealed by Facts4EU.”

Head of law firm Chronos Law, Tom Bohills is the founder of the Alliance of British Entrepreneurs, Vice Chairman of the rapidly influential CityUnited Project, Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of the Independent Business Network, and winner of the Law Society’s ‘sole practitioner of the year’ award. He told Facts4EU.Org:

“This continues to demonstrate the utter fallacy of the EU’s so-called level playing field.
"All the single market has ever achieved is the transfer of business away from the UK while entrenching low wages and poor working conditions in Eastern Europe. There is no rational, moral or economic case for the UK’s place in the EU based on these figures.
"It is bad for British business and bad for the quality of products to the end consumer.”

The Daily Express

This is the fourth Facts4EU.Org report this month to have been picked up by the Daily Express on the front page of its online edition. You can read their article here.

Observations

Over the years Facts4EU.Org has looked at almost every metric involved in the UK’s relationship with the EU. This week yet more official figures came out, analysed above, which demonstrate the way in which the EU has presented a false reality.

In this case, it is clear that any pretence from the EU that it’s actions against the UK are in some way founded on a desire for ‘fairness’ and a ‘level playing field’ are nonsense.

In addition, what is not shown in the above figures from the EU is that British companies obey British law in respect of workers’ rights, which go far above those pertaining in the EU. The UK’s maternity rights, statutory holidays, and other rights are far in excess of the those in the EU, as we have shown several times previously.

These all add to the cost for British companies employing people, compared to equivalent businesses in the EU. It is becoming increasingly more difficult for the EU to justify their ‘level playing field’ mantra and it is high time this was shown up by the UK Government for the fiction that it is.

Companies and countries compete. This is healthy; it drives innovation and growth. Long may that continue. However for the EU to try to claim that the UK must adhere to its standards while companies in most of its member countries enjoy far lower wage bills than those in the United Kingdom is yet another in a long line of absurdities from the Brussels ideologues.

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

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Sat 20 Mar 2021

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Reader Comments 9

1. Jon, Wales , Saturday, March 20, 2021, 08:38:

Time and again over many years, Facts4EU have shown up the EU and debunked issues usually using EU data to prove the point.
When the EU commission don't get their own way, it threatens (and continues to threaten) its member countries as it sees fit, including the UK which legally chose to exit EU institutions - and we haven't done badly since the day after the vote - with a global pandemic thrown in.
The commission don't like the loss of money or control over every aspect of peoples lives, yet expect us to do their bidding - NOT ME!
The EU should, in my opinion, be put out to grass and entirely ignored, as some of its members presently ignore it.
Can anyone imagine for a microsecond the commission telling the US what it must do, or how to reorganise itself? - me neither.
The EU commission attempts to find any way it can to fine an entire country, perhaps to boost their budget?
Here's the rub - the EU persistently try to rubbish our country because they're upset, yet still want us to holiday with them. Not a chance, and staycation will help our own economy. In any case, due to VDL's vaccine fiasco, we again see cases soaring across the continent.
It's time UK Prime Minister Johnson and Lord Frost, turn on the unaccountable commission with both barrels, because this loyal British citizen is absolutely fed up to the back teeth of the commission and its elites treating our country like rubbish, and I'm equally fed up with some elected UK MPs and unelected peers who disrespect their Oath of allegiance (to the UK).

2. Brian, near Telford , Saturday, March 20, 2021, 09:58:

This level playing field the EU keeps banging on about has always been a nonsense. Well done for providing yet more proof. They need to be called out on this.

3. kb , Saturday, March 20, 2021, 12:55:

Several UK manufacturing plants have relocated to to East Europe, notably Slovakia. This is, of course, to take advantage of the lower wages there, as indicated in this article. Some even benefitted from EU grants to move.
What I would like to know is if the Brexit deal makes this any less likely in the future. I suspect not, but maybe others can comment.

4. Diane , Sunday, March 21, 2021, 21:09:

(3) Level Playing Field a manipulated sham & does not exist though it depends who's asking I suppose & if rules are willing to bent. Presumably mention of Slovakia was relating to a JLR business move from the UK ( midlands ) to what was categorised as a ' disadvantaged area ' in Slovakia, with a sweet figure of £110 million offered by their government to the company and sanctioned as legal by the EU Commission under the bloc's State Aid regulations. Denounced at the time by some of our politicians and likened to our UK money funding the removal of UK jobs to another country. Re Mr Frost, according to some he is not thought to be the right person, echoed in a DT item today. We apparently need someone not so tough and confrontational, which is what the EU also were basically saying weeks ago, someone more amenable perhaps? We've seen and already had enough thank you very much of ' amenable ' and ' conciliatory ' Let him do his job and hope he is the right person for it.

5. Not A Tory , Monday, March 22, 2021, 08:06:

What did you all expect? The shameless way the Tories handled this whole mess, it was
always going to end like this. It's not even over, if you thought the worst has been done.
Just wait until the job losses start. When people get even more austerity - the only thing the Tories
could mentally grasp.
The next 10 years will be interesting indeed - I'd hate to be uneducated, unskilled, without a degree or thick
- basically a Tory voter. The next decade will require aptitude. Good luck to those without it.

6. kb , Monday, March 22, 2021, 13:49:

Diane (4) Yes it was the JLR story I was thinking about. However you have not said if the current deal would prevent this happening again?

7. kb , Monday, March 22, 2021, 13:56:

Not A Tory (5): funny how perceptions have changed. The Labour party used to stand for the relatively uneducated working class. Now it stands for an educated London elite. How has it come to abandoning it's voters like this?
Can I also remind people that Labour stood on a manifesto commitment to leave the EU in the 1983 general election. The Left, including Tony Benn, Michael Foot et al were all anti-EU.

8. Not A Tory (ever) , Monday, March 22, 2021, 14:47:

7. Perceptions are largely the same - some people will just never change.
What has changed, however, is education outside of Eton has improved.
The children of uneducated working class people do not have to be what their parents were.
Labour still thinks it's base are uneducated, working class families - when those are now Tory voters.
Which is why Labour look & behave like Shadow Tories.

9. kb , Monday, March 22, 2021, 16:15:

Not A Tory (8) It's a moot point that education has improved I'm afraid.
The children of uneducated working class people are basically on the scrapheap. Their parents' manufacturing jobs have been exported and they have to compete with immigrants for the zero hours jobs remaining. Things have not been so bad for these people since before WW2.

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