I recently picked up an interesting brochure entitled ‘Portrait of the European Union’. It contains detailed demographic information about the 25 countries of the EU and it’s a goldmine of useless information…
For instance, did you know that…

• Malta is tiny but crowded? There are 1266 people per square kilometre on the island, which has only 400,000 people in total. The most sparsely populated nation is Finland, with only 17 people per square kilometre there.


• Irish people are the most fertile? Ireland has the highest fertility rate, with 1.98 children per female. The lowest rate is Cyprus, with only 1.16. Here in the UK, our average is 1.71.


• Spanish women and Swedish men live longest? More precisely, women live longer in Spain than anywhere else in the EU, but men are best off in Sweden. Life expectancy for females is 83.7 years in Spain, compared to an EU average of 81.1 years. Men live an average of 77.9 years in Sweden, but 74.8 EU-wide.


• Sweden has high taxes? Its tax revenue is 51.4% of its GDP (and it has a correspondingly high level of public services). The lowest level is Latvia, at 29.1%. British taxes are just below the halfway mark, at 37.1%.


• One in six EU citizens is aged less than 15?


• Greece has more doctors? There’s 458 doctors for every 1000 people in Greece, compared to an EU average of 328 in 2001.


• People learn for longer in the UK? As of 2003, 21.3% of 25-34 year olds were in education or training here. The only EU country with a higher rate is Sweden.


• If you add the 2003 GDPs of every EU country together, the total is nearly ten thousand billion euros (£6 895 billion)?


• The UK has more service-sector workers than any other country?


• There are 80 mobile phones for every 100 EU residents? But in Luxembourg there are more phones than there are people.


• The EU has 200,000km of railways?


• Slovakia has the fewest cars – only 24 per 100 people?


• 12.7% of EU energy comes from renewable sources? But only Austria is past the 50% mark.