Eurostat confirms highest Irish prices
Prices in the UK, at 157% of the EU average, came second, followed at a distance by the three Nordic EU Member States – Finland (139%), Sweden (127%) and Denmark (123%).
The data on consumer price levels in 2017 form part of an article published recently by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
“It should be noted that this large price variation is mainly due to differences in taxation of these products among Member States,” stated the article.
Prices for consumer goods and services generally (including alcoholic beverages and tobacco) varied widely across the EU in 2017 with some prices differing by as much as 300% across Member States.
However, restaurants and hotels alongside alcohol and tobacco proved to have the widest gap in prices.
The lowest price level for alcohol and tobacco in 2017 was registered in Bulgaria (56% of the EU average), ahead of Romania (69%) and Hungary (70%).
At 125% of the EU average for general prices for goods and services, Ireland came in third for highest levels, behind Denmark (142% of EU average) and Luxembourg (127%).
Sweden too had price levels 1.25 the EU average while, at 122%, Finland was ahead of the UK which registered prices 117% of the EU norm.
At the opposite end of the scale, the lowest price level for both goods and services was found in Bulgaria whose prices were just 48% of the EU average while Poland (56%) and Romania (52%) were just above 50% of the average.