Bulgaria's Q2 living conditions hardest out of 9 EU states - Eurostat

At the same time, only 3.6% of Bulgarians reported that they could make ends meet easily or very easily, compared to 40.5% in list-topper Finland, Eurostat said in a press release reporting findings observed in nine EU member states.

Since the last quarter of 2021, Bulgaria has led the list of the countries surveyed by Eurostat in terms of its citizens finding it difficult or very difficult to make ends meet. The countries are Belgium, Bulgaria, Ireland, France, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland.

Elsewhere in Southeast Europe, Slovenia was the country with the biggest decrease in the share of the population that could make ends meet easily or very easily in the second quarter of this year compared with the previous quarter. The decline in Slovenia was 4.4 percentage points (pp), followed by Austria with 4.0 pp.

Slovenia and Finland were the only two countries where the share of population able to make ends meet with difficulty or with great difficulty increased from the first to the second quarter of 2022, Eurostat noted.

Except in Bulgaria, the largest proportion of citizens in Slovakia, Italy and France also reported that they had difficulties or great difficulties making ends meet.

The Eurostat survey on living conditions was first compiled among 11 EU member states as an indicator of how the pandemic had affected living conditions across the bloc. Eurostat has been tracking the level of the household income, quality of life and financial difficulties of citizens against variable socio-economic characteristics including age, sex, education level, employment activity, occupation and household size.