EU membership was a deliberate decision of policymakers to facilitate structural changes that led among other things to greater efficiency, increased competitiveness and lower price increases in Austria.
The average (CPI) inflation rate fell from approximately 2.8% in the decade before EU membership to some 1.7% thereafter.1 According to one economic study, EU membership has lowered inflation rates by some 0.3% to 0.5% and at the same time increased real GDP growth by some 0.3% to 0.8 % per annum in Austria, Finland and Sweden.2 A comparison by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank of Austria, Finland and Sweden, all of which have been EU Member States since 1995, and non-member Switzerland, concludes that productivity increases in Austria, Finland and Sweden have been nearly three times as high than those in Switzerland since 1995.3 Over the past decades, Austria has thus become a leading small, open economy in Europe.