Purchasing Power of Greeks Second From Bottom in the EU

Greeks have the second to the bottom—just above Bulgaria—purchasing power in the EU according to Eurostat. These are statistics that put a dent in the Greek government’s triumphant claims about the rise in economic prosperity.

In 2023, substantial differences in GDP per capita, expressed in purchasing power standards, were recorded among EU countries.

Luxembourg and Ireland had the highest levels (140 percent and 112 percent above the EU average, respectively), well ahead of the Netherlands (30 percent above the EU average), Denmark (+28 percent), and Austria (+23 percent).

In contrast, Bulgaria registered the lowest GDP per capita, 36 percent below the EU average, while Greece (-33 percent) and Latvia (-29 percent) were just above that.

Luxembourg has by far the highest GDP per capita among all the 27 countries included in this comparison at 140 percent above the EU average.

This is to some extent explained by the fact that a large number of foreign residents are employed in the country and thus contribute to its GDP, while they are not part of Luxembourg’s resident population. Their consumption expenditure is recorded in the national accounts of their country of residence.

Ireland comes out second among the EU Member States at 112 percent above the EU average followed by the Netherlands, Denmark, and Austria, each with a GDP per capita more than 20 percent above the average. The high level of GDP per capita in Ireland can be partly explained by the presence of large multinational companies holding intellectual property.

The associated contract manufacturing with these assets contributes to GDP, while a large part of the income earned from this production is returned to the companies’ ultimate owners abroad.

Greeks face European prices with low purchasing power

The countries of the European South that were also in the throes of the economic crisis in the previous decade, such as Portugal, Spain and Italy, are ranked much higher than Greece, with GDP per capita in purchasing power units set at 83 percent, 89 percent and 97 percent of the European average in 2023.

Greece is also ranked below many former Eastern Bloc countries, such as Romania, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, and even Latvia, ranked 25th, which has a GDP per capita in purchasing power units of 70.1 percent of the European average.

At the same time, the price level is at 88.2 percent of the average (these are figures for 2022, as other data is not yet available from Eurostat), reinforcing the sense of extravagant prices in Greece, causing widespread dissatisfaction as all opinion polls of recent months have shown.

GDP figures are affected by tax evasion, but the fact is that, unlike prices, incomes are below pre-crisis levels.

In the latest Metron Analysis poll for Mega TV, the participants ranked high prices and the state of the economy as the country’s most significant problems.