An interesting study; Wales has always suffered from the lack of interest shown by UK politicians - remember Welsh Secretary John Redwood boasting how he had sent several hundred million pounds back to London that had been allocated for public spending in Wales?
FORMER Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price published Harvard research findings that Wales could have been 39% richer as an independent nation.
Mr Price, who stood down after two terms as Carmarthen West MP, is now a research fellow at the US university.
His report, ‘The Flotilla Effect – Europe’s small economies through the eye of the storm’, outlines potential economic benefits of independence for Wales.
It argues that if Wales had become an independent small nation within the EU in 1990, and performed on a par with other small nations, people in Wales could today be an average of 39% richer, and Wales’ GDP would now be greater than that of the UK.
The paper produced by Harvard researchers Mr Price and Ben Levinger studied what has been achieved by small independent EU nations.
It concluded:
Some of Europe’s smallest countries are among its most prosperous;
There is a ‘small country bonus’ among EU member states, with smaller countries growing at a more rapid pace;
Smaller countries are frequently the fastest to recover from recession.
The report acknowledged that the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, banking collapse in Iceland, and Ireland’s fall from “Celtic Tiger” grace reinforced the argument for ‘big’ economies.
But it argues: “There are many plausible reasons for opposing Welsh independence, but the risk of impoverishment can hardly be said any longer to be the strongest. Small can be bountiful – if that’s the path that people choose.”
Four key factors made small nations economically successful, it said, openness to trade, social cohesion, adaptability, ‘the macro-politics of micro scale’ and big government in a small country.
Mr Price, said: “People in Wales could be around 39% richer, and the Welsh economy could have grown by 2.5% a year had Wales achieved independence around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and followed a similar patter to other similar small nations. In contrast, regions or countries which have rejected independence have performed poorly.
“Opponents of independence and further devolution have often misused the current economic problems to suggest that small countries would struggle for survival in tough economic times.
“Many conclusions of this report blow these assumptions out of the water.”
Plaid’s MEP Jill Evans who commissioned the report said: “The increasing progress towards independence of many small nations in the European Union, such as Catalonia, Flanders and Scotland, has put this issue firmly on the political agenda.
“The debate on Scottish independence, in particular, has huge implications for Wales. So it is essential that we have a real debate on how we build a successful and sustainable economy.”
