WRITTEN QUESTION E-3151/03 by Herman Schmid (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. The perception of quality of life in the EU.
Date: 2003-10-23
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU Member State, EU statistics, quality of life, social situation, standard of living, statistical method

27.3.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 78 E/229

Under the 2000-04 Action Plan the Commission, together with the Member States and Europol, undertook
to put in place tougher measures to combat drug trafficking. It will also help the Member States to step up
police, customs and judicial cooperation and to develop expertise in controlling the trade in chemical
precursors.

In addition, the Commission hopes that the Council will shortly reach a political agreement on the
framework decision laying down minimum provisions on criminal acts and penalties in the field of drug
trafficking.

The implementation plan outlining action to be taken in relation to synthetic drugs calls on Member States,
Europol and EMCDDA to take specific measures to combat diversion of precursors, illegal laboratories and
distribution networks. It will be examined as part of the final assessment of the 2000-04 Action Plan.

With a view to tightening legislation on synthetic drugs, the Commission has presented a proposal for a
Council Decision on the information exchange, risk-assessment and the control on new narcotic drugs and
new synthetic drugs which will replace the Joint Action of June 1997. Parliament will also have the
opportunity to express its opinion on this subject.

(2004/C 78 E/0232)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3151/03

by Herman Schmid (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(23 October 2003)

Subject: The perception of quality of life in the EU

There are many ways of measuring quality of life. The OECD’s league table measures the GNP of the
private products and services market. By this yardstick Sweden lies in 17th place.

Another measurement method, devised by the US Department of Labour, looks at the development of
industrial productivity (International comparisons of manufacturing productivity and unit labour cost
trends 2002, Newsletter 9 September 2003 (cid:1) Bureau of Labour Statistics, Washington DC). Here the
figures show that the increase in productivity development in 2002 was higher in Sweden than in any
other country. Accordingly Sweden took 1st place in this table.

It is clear that different measurement systems yield different results. Therefore it is interesting to ask the
Commission whether it considers that any of these systems can give a reliable, usable and fair picture of
the quality of life in a Member State. Do they not in fact present too narrow a view of quality of life in the
EU, whose identity claims to be built on the European welfare model, a balance between competition and
social responsibility?

There are also other scales which raise their sights above the measurement of mere economic and
statistical figures. These arose because the bodies which commissioned them, including the UN, considered
that quality of life must include citizens’ perception of their situation. Increased standards of living for the
few or for the many need not automatically lead to better quality of life. Citizens must first give their
assessment of how a better economy has improved their quality of life as a nation or as individuals. And
for this, more advanced measuring criteria are needed.

Measurement methods have been developed which include length of life, a good environment and legal
certainty. One international index based on 40 quality of life indicators is called WISP, the Weighted Index
of Social Progress. This scale includes variables such as education, health, equality, social economy,
rights, corruption, victims of war) etc. On this
demography, environment, social chaos (political
measurement Sweden again comes in first place.

Does the Commission consider that WISP and similar measuring schemes should be used more often in
the EU when comparing EU Member States with each other? Might the balance between competition and
the social dimension, to which the EU undertook to aspire under the Lisbon strategy, risk being distorted

C 78 E/230

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

27.3.2004

by more competition and less social responsibility, if the only quality of life scale used in the EU is the
OECD’s? That being so, should WISP (or similar EU quality of life indices) always complement the OECD’s
quality of life league table (or similar EU indices for measuring productivity) when quality of life is
measured in the EU?

Answer given by Mr Solbes Mira on behalf of the Commission

(20 November 2003)

Many separate but related factors contribute to the quality of life, and this makes defining and measuring
the ‘quality of life’ a complex and rather subjective matter.

The level of production of goods and services in a country (cid:1) measured as the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) (cid:1) is a measure of material well-being, which would generally be considered as an important
component of the overall quality of life. However, quality of life is clearly about more than material well-
being, and the Commission has never presented estimates of levels or growth in GDP as being equivalent
to a measure of the quality of life.

The question refers specifically to the Weighted Index of Social Progress (WISP). This is one of a number of
similar measures that have been developed in recent years to try to capture the broader aspects of quality
of life. Examples include the Environmental Sustainability Index and the Human Wellbeing Index. There
are two critical stages in the construction of these indices: first, a set of variables must be chosen, and
second, these must be aggregated to produce a single number, which is called the index of social progress,
or environmental sustainability, or human wellbeing, and so on, depending on the compiler of the index.

Both of these stages (cid:1) selecting the variables, and deciding how they are to be added together (cid:1) involve a
considerable degree of subjectivity, and this is a major drawback to all such synthetic indices. By changing
the set of variables, or the weighting method, different measures and thus different rankings of countries
may be calculated, so that it is questionable whether such indices are more robust measures of the quality
of life than conventional statistics.

Rather than trying to compress a multi-dimensional subject such as the quality of life into a single number,
it may be more appropriate to use a range of measures that reflect this multi-dimensionality and avoid the
subjectivity that is an inevitable weakness of index-based approaches. Indeed, this is the approach that
international organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
and the United Nations have adopted to address issues related to sustainable development, by devising sets
of sustainable development indicators. Eurostat has adapted the United Nations set of indicators to Member
States (cid:1) see the publication ‘Measuring progress towards a sustainable Europe’ (cid:1) and is currently
developing a set of indicators that can be used to monitor progress in implementing the Union sustainable
development strategy.

This method has also been adopted to monitor the Lisbon strategy, for example, where the Commission
and the Council have agreed a set of structural indicators that relate to the various elements of the strategy,
and the Commission has developed a database containing additional data relevant to the strategy. In this
way, progress towards each of the Lisbon objectives is measured, allowing a balanced picture of overall
developments to be formed.

(2004/C 78 E/0233)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3155/03

by Mogens Camre (UEN) to the Commission

(23 October 2003)

Subject: Competition-distorting customs duties on fish imported from Norway to Denmark

The competitiveness of Danish firms in the fish processing industry is being hit by the EU’s customs
policy. The EU reference prices for raw herring are higher than the Norwegian prices. Danish firms are