Farewell to the European Union’s east-west divide: Decoupling energy lifts the well-being of households, 2000–2018

The authors conducted an analysis of the 27 European Union (EU) member states between 2000 and 2018 to examine the relationship between human well-being and the per capita residential energy use. They combined several quantitative techniques (cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis, i.e. descriptive statistics, inequality metrics, and decoupling indicators) with qualitative analytical tools to obtain a broad analysis. A moderate positive relationship was detected between residential energy use per capita and human development. The Gini coefficients and the Hoover index reveal dramatic differences in the inter-country distribution of residential energy use. However, the territorial distribution and spatial inequalities of residential energy consumption per capita are consistent with the differences in economic development and show moderate and declining differences. At the EU level, the authors found that the delinking process had become dominant by 2018, and 19 of the 27 member states had already reached the saturation point. The differences among EU member states cannot be narrowed down to a simple perception of a deep East-West divide; by today, this division has changed, and the differences are unclear. The basic classification of the EU member states (i.e. old member states and post-communist economies) is no longer valid, which indicates that some adjustments should be made for energy analysis.