The "less developed" regions of the European Union: list of 22, there is also Sardinia

Sardinia is on the list of 22 territories that Brussels has classified as "less developed" . The study was made public at the end of the month by the Region's Statistics Office . The evaluation took into account 68 indicators which allowed the so-called nomenclature to be assigned to each geographical area.

Technically we talk about Nuts and it is first and foremost a demographic macrodata, to which a numerical value has been assigned first and then a subcategory. Sardinia is included in the Nuts 2 group due to its population ranging between 800 thousand and three million inhabitants (residents are precisely 1,575,028). Having a GDP per capita that is 75 percent lower than the European average of the 27 member countries , it is labeled as a "less developed region".

In the list of 22 territories lagging behind in growth, Italy is the worst-off nation. In addition to our island, the entire South has worrying indicators. That is, Sicily, Calabria, Puglia, Basilicata, Molise and Campania, also included in Nuts 2 although in some cases they have more than three million residents. Spain and Poland, on the other hand, have two regions each, while one on each side is expressed by Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia.

The study is entitled " Europe 2030. Sardinia and the sustainable development goals ". It is practically the territorial version of the political-economic agenda voted on 25 September 2015 by the UN. That United Nations resolution was supported by 193 countries, including Italy, and today as then it provides 17 objectives, called "Goals" and divided into 169 "Targets", i.e. steps through which to achieve operational macro-results.

The first Goal declared by the UN, net of the ambitious objective, is "to put an end to all forms of poverty in the world". To do this, the European Union has decided to measure the risk of poverty in each territory. It turns out that Sardinia is one of the regions with the highest poverty risk rate : on our island a value of 30.8 was detected, which corresponds to the share of the population exposed to conditions of poverty. These are citizens with an economic availability that does not reach 60 percent of the national median income.

To understand the gravity of the Sardinian situation it is sufficient to look at the European data: the population's exposure to poverty is stuck at 16.5, almost half of the island's data. Only three regions of Southern Italy are worse off , starting with Campania at 37.1. Then here is Sicily at 36.8 and Calabria at 34.5. Molise, at 30.5, has a value similar to our island. Puglia, however, is at 28.8, while Basilicata records the lowest risk with 24.5.

Outside Italy, but still better than Sardinia, here is the 29.1 of Andalusia, in Spain. Also in the Iberian country, the Castilla-La Mancha region is at 26.1. Similar values for Sterea Ellada in Greece, at 25.4, and for Yugoiztochen, in Bulgaria, whose population exposure is at 25.3.

In Nuts 2 of the “less developed regions”, the lowest poverty risk was recorded in Közép-Dunántúl, Hungary, with just 7.5. Not bad either in Západné Slovensko, in Slovakia, which recorded 9.5. Vzhodna Slovenija, in the former Yugoslavia, follows with 13.2. There is therefore a group of paired regions: 13.6 for Małopolskie in Poland; 14.2 for Moravskoslezsko in the Czech Republic; 14.4 for Nord-Vest in Romania; 14.9 for Alentejo in Portugal; 16.4 for Mazowiecki in Poland; 18.2 for Jadranska Hrvatska in Croatia. It rises to 23.1 in Vidurio ir vakarų Lietuvos regionas, in Lithuana, where the risk of poverty is however significantly lower than that of Southern Italy.

To compensate, at least in part, the exposure of Sardinian families to poverty, there is the index of serious material deprivation. This is a value that measures the share of people forced to give up goods, services and social activity for financial reasons. In Sardinia the indicator is at 5.1, even lower than the European average value of 5.9.

Our island is mid-table in Nuts 2. The regions of the former Yugoslavia and the former USSR or in any case the former communist countries are even better. The lowest rate is recorded in the two Polish territories: 2.0 in Mazowiecki and 2.1 in Małopolskie. In Západné in Slovakia and in Moravskoslezsko in the Czech Republic it is at 3.6, while in Vzhodna in Slovenia it is at 4. Alentejo, in Portugal, is also better than Sardinia, where the serious material deprivation index is at 4.8.

As for Italy, the situation in Molise is excellent, where the indicator is among the best in the entire Nuts 2 group with 2.5. In Basilicata the value is 5.2. Worrying numbers in Campania, where the figure is 14. Puglia is at 10.4, Sicily at 9.5, Calabria at 9.1. Also included in the list of 22 "less developed" regions are the Province of Luxembourg in Belgium and Latvija in Latvia. But in both territories it was not possible to detect either the poverty risk rate or the serious material deprivation index.

Investigation 1) continues