Approximately 6.9 pct of the inhabitants of the European Union stated in 2019 that they cannot afford to sufficiently heat their homes, a share that has been steadily declining in recent years from a peak of 10, 8 pct recorded in 2012, according to data published on Wednesday by the European Statistical Office (Eurostat), as reported by AGERPRES.
Among the Member States, the situation varies greatly, with the highest percentage of people stating that they cannot afford to heat their home sufficiently being registered in 2019 in Bulgaria (30.1 pct), Lithuania (26.7 pct), Cyprus (21 pct), Portugal (18.9 pct), Greece (17.9 pct), Italy (11.1 pct) and Romania (9.3 pct), while in Finland, Austria, Sweden, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Estonia and Germany only 2 pct of respondents said the same thing.
As in the EU, in Romania the percentage of those who say they can not afford to heat their homes sufficiently has dropped steadily in recent years, from 33.3 pct in 2007 to 11.3 pct in 2017, reaching 9.3 pct in 2019.