In 2023, almost one in ten people in the European Union (EU) could not afford a nutritious meal every two days, up from the previous year, but Portugal had the third-lowest percentage.
Data released this Friday by the community statistical office Eurostat shows that last year “9.5% of the EU population could not afford a meal containing meat, fish or a vegetarian equivalent every two days”, up 1.2 percentage points from 8.3% in 2022.
“In addition, focusing on people at risk of poverty, the EU-wide percentage was 22.3% in 2023, indicating an increase of 2.6 percentage points compared to 19.7% in 2022,” he adds.
By country, the highest percentage of people at risk of poverty and unable to afford adequate food was recorded in Slovakia (45.7%), followed by Hungary (44.9%) and Bulgaria (40.2%).
On the other hand, the lowest percentage was recorded in Ireland (4.2%), followed by Cyprus (5.0%) and Portugal (5.9%). In the EU, the difference between the total population and the population at risk of poverty in terms of access to adequate nutrition was 12.8 percentage points.
Across Member States, the largest difference was recorded in Hungary at 30.2 percentage points, followed by Slovakia (27.9 percentage points) and Greece (27.3 percentage points), while the smallest differences – less than four percentage points – were recorded in Sweden, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Portugal and Ireland.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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