Comparative analysis of the economic role of agriculture in the EU countries

摘要

The role of agriculture within the frame of the enlarged EU is analysed in this paper. There is a?requirement to perceive the tendency towards the downgrading of the status of agriculture in the national economy of the EU countries with the respect of the differences in the importance of agriculture mainly in the countries that are the new EU members. The role of agriculture is characterised by the following indices: share of the agricultural employees in the total employment, share of the added value of agriculture in the GDP, and index of the value added per one agricultural worker. These indices are the base for the construction of the “index of economic importance of the agriculture” which are the countries ranged by. A?multidimensional classification of the countries was realised by the cluster analysis that divided the countries into three clusters accordingly to their similarity with regards to the importance of their agriculture in their national economy.