If we want to compare ourselves with other similar countries in Europe, Slovenia is an almost perfect example. It is virtually exactly the same size as Wales, though with just over two million people.
It even gives us a run for our money in the spectacular mountain and castle department:
And the flag of the capital city, Ljubljana, bears an uncanny resemblance to a flag we are all more familiar with:
Slovenia used to be part of Yugoslavia until it declared independence in 1991 and became a member of the United Nations in 1992. Unlike Croatia and Bosnia, it was fortunate not to suffer from more than a few days of skirmishes with the Serbian army, and didn't require any post war rebuilding. So it has become a model of how a small country can prosper as a result of becoming independent.
Like Wales, Slovenia has a rich half and a poorer half with about the same degree of difference between them. These are the GDP per head figures (on Purchasing Power Standard, to adjust for differences in the cost of living as explained at the end of this document) for both countries going back to 1997, taken from this site:
| | Wales East | West | Slovenia West | East | |
| | |
| 1997 | 18,900 | 13,400 | 14,900 | 10,700 | |
| 1998 | 19,800 | 13,300 | 15,800 | 11,300 | |
| 1999 | 21,000 | 13,500 | 17,100 | 12,100 | |
| 2000 | 22,400 | 14,700 | 18,000 | 12,800 | |
| 2001 | 23,900 | 15,000 | 18,800 | 13,200 | |
| 2002 | 24,300 | 15,900 | 20,100 | 14,100 | |
| 2003 | 25,100 | 15,900 | 20,900 | 14,300 | |
| 2004 | 26,200 | 16,800 | 22,500 | 15,500 | |
| 2005 | 26,100 | 17,700 | 23,600 | 16,300 | |
| 2006 | 26,800 | 18,300 | 24,900 | 17,100 | |
| 2007 | 27,500 | 18,200 | 26,600 | 18,200 | |
| 2008 | 27,100 | 17,900 | 27,300 | 18,900 | |
| | |
| Growth | 43.4% | 33.6% | 83.2% | 76.6% | |
As we can see, back in 1997 Wales was significantly more prosperous than Slovenia. But in the past twelve years Wales' economic growth has been fairly pathetic, while Slovenia's rate of growth has been about double that of Wales. This means that West Slovenia has now become richer than East Wales, and even poorer East Slovenia has become richer than West Wales and the Valleys.
I see this as a good example of how a small country can benefit as a result of becoming independent rather than remaining in a comfort zone of being part to a larger state. Slovenia has become more outward looking, needing to adopt a more open trading and export orientated strategy with neighbouring countries to survive ... and has done very well as a result. It is another example of what Adam Price and Ben Levinger described in The Flotilla Effect.
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Now of course there are no automatic guarantees that Wales would do as well if we were independent. It would depend entirely on the policies pursued by the governments we elected. But there is a consistent pattern of small independent countries outperforming larger ones, and there's no reason to believe that Wales would be so different from Slovenia.
So if we imagine that instead of voting for a limited amount of devolution within the UK in 1997 we had voted for outright independence from the UK, then the GDP of East Wales would now be 34,600 per head if it had matched the performance of West Slovenia, and the GDP of West Wales and the Valleys would now be 23,700 per head if it had matched the performance of East Slovenia.
I wouldn't want people to think that I've cherry picked the best example in choosing Slovenia. I chose it because of how similar it is to Wales. In the Baltic States the rate of economic growth has been very much greater. Estonia (1.4m people) grew by 150%, Latvia (2.3m people) grew by 152% and Lithuania (3.2m people) grew by 143% over the same period [see this spreadsheet]. But as ex-Soviet countries they were starting from a very much lower base, and are still below the level of GDP per head for West Wales and the Valleys. Slovenia is a much more relevant example because it did not start from very far behind us, but has now overtaken us.
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Those who argue against independence for Wales say that we can't afford it. These figures are an indication of how much we are losing out as a result of not being independent. The choice for Wales is either to carry on as we are, tied to a United Kingdom that is more concerned to protect the interests of South East England and its financial services sector than it is about Wales, or to put ourselves directly into the international arena. We might well go through hard times for the first few years after independence as we rebuild our economy, but in ten or twelve years we will have more than made up for it.
Update - 23:00 14 March 2012
The 2009 figures have just been published. Looking through them, the figures for 2008 have changed quite dramatically, which I think probably represents a correction largely due to the impact of the debt crisis. But the figures for earlier years have also changed slightly, which might perhaps be explained by an adjustment to the PPS formula.
These are the newly published figures for all years. The figures for 1997 are not on the latest Eurostat table, so I have kept the figure published last year:
| | Wales East | West | Slovenia West | East | |
| | |
| 1997 | 18,900 | 13,400 | 14,900 | 10,700 | |
| 1998 | 19,500 | 13,100 | 15,900 | 11,400 | |
| 1999 | 20,600 | 13,300 | 17,200 | 12,200 | |
| 2000 | 21,400 | 14,400 | 18,000 | 12,900 | |
| 2001 | 22,900 | 14,800 | 18,800 | 13,300 | |
| 2002 | 23,300 | 15,600 | 20,000 | 14,200 | |
| 2003 | 24,200 | 15,700 | 20,900 | 14,400 | |
| 2004 | 25,600 | 16,600 | 22,600 | 15,500 | |
| 2005 | 25,200 | 17,500 | 23,600 | 16,200 | |
| 2006 | 26,300 | 18,000 | 25,000 | 17,000 | |
| 2007 | 26,700 | 18,100 | 26,600 | 18,200 | |
| 2008 | 25,400 | 17,300 | 27,200 | 18,800 | |
| 2009 | 23,300 | 16,100 | 24,600 | 16,900 | |
| | |
| Growth | 23.3% | 20.1% | 65.1% | 57.9% | |
The basic picture is still the same. Slovenia is more prosperous than Wales, and the rate of growth is much faster than in Wales. The previous figures to 2008 showed a total growth about double that of Wales, but the new figures to 2009 show that the growth in Slovenia is now more like three times that of Wales.
