Infrastruktura społeczno-techniczna w krajach Unii Europejskiej – analiza taksonomiczna / Socio-technical infrastructure in the European Union – a taxonomic analysis

The purpose of the article is to compare the European Union countries in terms of socio-technical infrastructure development and to determine Poland’s position in the league table. The analysis was made using 9 statistical indicators characterizing different aspects of socio-technical infrastructure in 27 EU member countries. The league table was compiled using various multidimensional comparative analysis methods – a development model proposed by Hellwig and the method of standardized sums. The results of calculations obtained by two different methods indicate that socio-technical infrastructure is best developed in Austria, Germany and Greece, whereas the worst is in Cyprus, Malta and Romania. Poland ranks far behind other EU countries in the league table, 23rd or 24th depending on the adopted analysis method. The improvement of Poland’s unfavourable situation compared with other European Union countries in terms of socio-technical infrastructure requires changes of some of its elements represented by the variables used in the analysis e.g., medical doctors per hundred thousand inhabitants and the number of bedplaces in hotels and other short-stay accommodation per thousand inhabitants.