Although being both a developed and a high income country, Portugal had the lowest GDP per capita in western Europe, and the average income was one of the lowest in the European Union. According to the Eurostat it had the sixth-lowest purchasing power of the 27 member states of the European Union for the period 2005–2007. However, research about quality of life by the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) Quality-of-life Survey placed Portugal 19th in the world for 2005, ahead of other economically and technologically advanced countries such as France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and South Korea, but nine places behind its only neighbour, Spain.