With Croatia's entry, the EU will have nearly 4.4 million more inhabitants, which will bring the total of the Union's population to 506.8 million. With the addition of the territory of Croatia, which measures about 87,600 square kilometres, the EU will cover 4.5 million square kilometres in area.
At the time of its entry into the EU, Croatia's per-capita GDP is 61% of the EU average, which places the country at the bottom of the ranking, above Romania and Bulgaria which stand at 49% and 47% of the EU27 average respectively. Immediately preceding Croatia are Cyprus (62%), Hungary and Poland (both 66%). Luxembourg tops the rankings with 271% of the EU average.
In 2012, GDP in EU27 contracted 0.3%, as against 2% in Croatia. Of 12 EU countries that recorded a GDP decline in 2012, only four countries reported a more severe decline than Croatia's, namely Greece (6.4%), Portugal (3.2%), Italy and Cyprus (2.4% each). At the other end of the spectrum, the highest growth rates were reported by the Baltic countries, namely Latvia (5.6%), Lithuania (3.7%) and Estonia (3.2%), while the EU's biggest economy, Germany, last year recorded a growth of 0.7%.
Croatia is entering the EU as a country with the third highest unemployment rate, which reached 18.1% in April, while the EU27 average was 11%. Only two EU countries had a higher unemployment rate than Croatia's, namely Spain (26.2%) and Greece (26.1%), while closest to Croatia was Portugal with an unemployment rate of 17.3%. The lowest jobless rates were recorded in Austria (4.7%), Luxembourg (5.3%), Germany (5.4%) and the Netherlands (5.8%). At the same time, Croatia was at the bottom of the list of countries in terms of the employment rate, which was 64.2% for the EU27 and 48.7% for Croatia.
One of the few economic indicators that ranks Croatia close to the EU average is the annual rate of inflation, which was 1.6% in the EU27 in May this year and 1.8% in Croatia, the same as in Spain, Slovakia and Hungary. Five EU member states had higher inflation in May than Croatia, 17 countries had lower inflation rates, while two (Latvia and Greece) had negative rates.
Indicators of information technology development show that Croatia is lagging behind the EU average. For instance, 70% of the population of the EU27 use the Internet on a regular basis, compared to 58% in Croatia, and 76% of EU27 households have access to the Internet, as against 66% in Croatia.
The rate of investment in research and development in the EU27 is 2.03% of GDP, as against 0.75% in Croatia. In the EU27, 107.45 patents per million inhabitants are submitted to the European Patent Office, as against 3.45 in Croatia. High technology accounts for 15.6% of the EU's overall exports, as against 7.4% of Croatian exports.
Sociological statistics show that persons with high school education in both the EU27 and Croatia speak 1.5 foreign languages on average. In the EU27, 4.4 marriages are entered into per 1,000 inhabitants and 4.6 in Croatia, while the number of divorces in the EU27 is 1.9 and in Croatia it is 1.3. Life expectancy at birth is 83.2 years in the EU27 and 80.4 years in Croatia. Life expectancy in the EU27 is 77.4 years for men and 83.2 for women, as against 73.9 years for men and 80.4 for women in Croatia.
In Croatia, 21.1% of people live in risk of poverty (after social transfers), while the EU27 average is 16.9%. In the EU27, 29.3% of GDP is allocated on average for social transfers, compared to 20.8% in Croatia.