ABSTRACT
Paper consumption continues to increase in all the main grades of paper and the total output of European mills has risen correspondingly. However, the overall increases in consumption and production disguise some substantial changes in the structure and spatial character of the industry as it adjusts to the progressive integration of the European economy for pulp and paper. A common feature of many estimates of expected future demand for paper has been the use of high correlation between GDP and paper consumption followed by the assumption that these correlations are independent of their spatial context. For the original European Economic Community nations in which Belgium and Luxembourg are combined for trade statistics the expected number of cells showing a strict increase or decrease is 7. As the scale of self-sufficiency has increased from the local to national to international levels, so the range of a typical papermill's products has become more restricted.
