Quality of life in EU candidate countries and differences with Member States
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| Release date | 07/10/2004 |
| Contributor | EnviroWindows team |
There are indications that accession countries enjoy lower subjective well-being than it is predicted by objective indicators in comparison to EU member states - this observation is conventionally refused with an argument of too high pre-transition popular expectations (Cook: 8). To test this observation non-conventional approach is called for and it is concluded from it that accession countries might enjoy distinctively different economic patterns of development from EU member states, which relatively more favour non-commercial and non-material aspects of economic progress. This in turn makes problematic present neo-liberal stance of EU economic strategy of development as adopted by Lisbon documents and stability pact. The most unsustainable is not profit-motivated degradation of economic resources itself, but degradation of multiple functions of economic, social and environmental resources. The main purpose of the paper is to review different approaches to defining and measuring quality of life (QL), focusing on social and environmental and in particular on biodiversity aspects of this link in relation to conventional commercial and value added maximisation approaches ...