Is the European Union becoming a single publication system?

Using percentage performance shares of individual member states, the European Union can be assessed as if it were a network publication system. The prediction of systemness (based on the Markov property of the distribution) can be tested against the predictions of trend lines for individual nations. The publication performance of the EU can also be compared to that of the USA and Japan. The results suggest that a comparison with (global) world trade is important for understanding developments between the various R&D systems. Predictions for the 1999 indicator values are also provided.