Key Finding
7. Two Europes are emerging.
In the overall rankings, the Baltic countries are rapidly falling behind the rest of the EU. Additionally, none of the four original so-called PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain) score higher in prosperity than the remaining Western European nations. In fact, they rank lower than some Eastern European nations: Slovenia scores higher than all of the original PIGS, the Czech Republic is ranked higher than Italy and Portugal; and Slovakia and Croatia have overtaken Greece. Three of the four original PIGS also rank lower than they did last year. Portugal moved from 25th to 26th, Greece moved from 36th to 39th, and Spain moved from 20th to 23rd. Some analysts have recently replaced Italy with Ireland, when referring to the 'troubled 'PIGS.' Interestingly, Ireland has dropped two places in terms of its overall Prosperity Index ranking – from 9th in 2009 to 11th in 2010. Ireland's performance in the Economy, Entrepreneurship & Opportunity, Governance, and Education sub-indexes have decreased since 2009; with the largest drop in ranking occurring in the Economy sub-index.
European Countries on Different Trajectories
