Nhân tiện, hóa ra châu Âu đã được phân rã theo trục Đông Tây về giàu nghèo, trong đó phía Đông chủ yếu là các nước Balkans nghèo hơn phía Tây nhiều, chỉ bằng 1/14 Tây Âu, theo số liệu năm 2004, sách của Robert Bideleux:
" The Western European Industrial Revolution, coupled with Balkan and East European specialization in the exportation of unsophisticated and less remunerative primary products, widened Europe’s east–west disparity in per-capita GDP (at market prices) from about 2:1 to about 3:1 during the nineteenth century (Berend 1986: 339). By 2004, these economic disparities had widened enormously, to a ratio of around 14:1 or 15:1 (at market prices) for Albania and Bosnia, 1:13 for Macedonia, 12:1 for Serbia
and Montenegro, 11:1 for Bulgaria, 10:1 for Romania and 1:5 for Croatia (World Bank Conceptual frameworks 3 2005: 292–3). Therefore, unless Western Europe were to suffer some currently
unforeseen catastrophe, these massive east–west economic disparities are bound to persist for another 50 to 100 years from now. This would be the case even if the Balkan economies were to grow by historically exceptional rates of 5 or 6 per cent per annum for several decades to come."- The Balkans: A Post-Commxxxnist History
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