Michael Dauderstädt European Cohesion Progress at a Snail’s Pace AT A GLANCE Both Europe-wide inequality and the at-risk-of-poverty rate again fell slightly from 2016 to 2017. This was large­ly due to the strong growth in the poorer new EU mem­ber states between the Baltic and the Balkans. In particu­lar, the number of people below the poverty threshold of 60 per cent of European median income fell by several million. Inequality and the at-risk-of-poverty rate Eu­rope-wide, however, remained well above the level in individual EU member states. In the recent European elections Eurosceptic parties enjoyed unprecedented success. They have been able to mobilise widespread disappointment in the European Union(EU) and are looking to pin the blame for social problems on Brussels and Europe’s open borders. Concerns about immigration from other EU member states, itself a consequence of substantial income differentials within Europe, also drove the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom. Inequality and poverty in the EU are indeed scandalously high, but just recently progress has re­sumed, albeit rather slowly. A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE ON INEQUALITY AND POVERTY er end of the distribution are living in poverty. Generally speak­ing, households are deemed to be at risk of poverty if they earn below 60 per cent of the median income. The at-risk-of-pover­ty rate indicates the proportion of people in this position in the total population. In 2017, the national rate in the EU member states stood at between 24 per cent and 11 per cent, with an EU average of 16.9 per cent. Inequality is often measured us­ing the S80/S20 ratio, which gives the income ratio between the richest and the poorest quintiles in a given country. In 2017, the national values of this indicator in the EU member states lay between 8.2(Bulgaria) and 3.4(Slovenia). One can calculate the same indicators for the EU itself, as an economic area. Such an estimation is, however, hindered by the fact that account has to be taken of the distribution both within individual member states and between them. As a re­sult, values vary substantially because income differentials between the countries of Europe are considerable. For exam­ple, gross domestic product(GDP) per capita in Germany is over five times that of Bulgaria. Income differences between countries can be reduced, however, if one expresses them in terms of purchasing power standards(PPS). Because the price level tends to be lower in poorer countries the purchasing power of a given amount of money is correspondingly higher there. From a national perspective what we see is that, within coun­tries, incomes are unequally distributed and people at the low­Eurostat’s measure of inequality in the EU neglects these dif­ferences between countries. For Eurostat, the richest and the