June the 24th, 2021 - Croatian purchasing power has risen a little, but the country unfortunately still remains ranked among the European Union's very worst as the tremendously devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic continue to be more than evident.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Ljubica Gataric/VL writes, after falling during and owing to the year dominated by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Republic of Croatia dropped to 64 percent of the value of the average GDP of the European Union per capita in 2020, down from 65 percent back in pre-pandemic 2019, thus cementing its status as the second poorest EU member state. Croatia is as such ranked alongside Greece and is just behind Bulgaria.
Looking at Croatian purchasing power by actual individual consumption (AIC), Croatia has jumped by 1 percentage point to 67 percent of GDP due to falling prices, but it is still the second worst position within the bloc.
Romania, on the other hand, raised its GDP per capita to 72 percent, ahead of Slovakia, while in real individual consumption it was 79 percent. Last year, according to Eurostat, the AIC per capita expressed in purchasing power standards (PPS) ranged from 61 percent to 131 percent of the European Union average.
Nine EU member states have a standard which is deemed to be above average, most notably the very rich country of Luxembourg, which is an impressive 31 percent above the EU average, followed by Germany (23 percent above) and Denmark (21 percent). The Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Belgium, Sweden and France were all 5–20 percent above the EU average also.
In Cyprus, Italy, Lithuania and Ireland, levels were 10 percent or less than average, while Spain, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Malta, Poland and Slovenia lagged 11-20 percent behind. Estonia and Greece were 21-25 percent below the EU average. Slovakia, Latvia, Hungary and Croatia are down by an average of 25-33 percent.
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