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Friday, June 26, 2009

Statistics on European consumers

New statistics on EU population are available on life-style, households, complaints and shopping." Consumers in Europe ", jointly published by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities and the General Directorate Health & Consumers of the European Commission, presents a comprehensive set of data on consumer markets and consumer protection issues.

The publication starts with a presentation of the profile of the EU consumer and the retail network, followed by twelve chapters devoted to different consumer markets (food, alcoholic beverages, clothing, housing, furnishings, health, transport, communications, recreation & culture, education, restaurants & hotels and miscellaneous goods & services), each providing data on consumption expenditure and price levels.

More than half of EU27 households live in houses

In the EU27 in 2007, 46% of households lived in flats, 30% in detached houses and 22% in semi-detached or terraced houses. The share of households living in flats was highest in Latvia (72%), Estonia (69%), Spain (66%) and Germany (62%). The percentage of households living in detached houses was largest in Slovenia (65%), Hungary (57%), Romania (56%) and Denmark (48%), while for semi-detached or terraced houses, the share was highest in the United Kingdom (59%), Ireland and the Netherlands (both 55%).

Almost two thir ds of households in the EU27 own their dwelling

I n 2007, 65% of households in the EU27 owned their dwelling, 21% paid rent at market rate, 8% paid rent at a reduced rate and 7% of households occupied free accommodation. More than half of households owned their dwelling in all Member States (except in Germany ) with the highest proportions in Romania (96%), Lithuania and Slovakia (both 89%) and Hungary (87%). The lowest percentages of households owing their dwelling were observed in Germany (46%), Austria (52%), the Netherlands (56%) and Denmark , France and Poland (all 58%).

Natural g as account for 40% of energy consumption of households in the EU27

Household energy consumption consists of energy delivered to households for space heating, sanitary water heating, cooking and electrical appliances. Fuel for personal transport is not included. In the EU27 in 2007, households consumed 285 million tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) of energy. Of this energy, 40% came from natural gas, 24% from electrical energy, 15% from petroleum products, 12% from renewable energy, 7% from district heating and 3% from solid fuels.

The highest shares of consumption of natural gas were found in the Netherlands (72%), the United Kingdom (67%), Italy and Hungary (both 57%). For electrical energy, the largest proportions were observed in Malta (70%), Sweden (51%) and Cyprus (46%). Greece (50%) had the highest share of consumption of petroleum products, followed by Ireland (39%) and Cyprus (36%).

The strongest shares of renewable energy consumed by households were found in Latvia (50%), Estonia (39%) and Portugal (37%). For district heating, the highest proportions were found in Estonia (38%), Sweden and Lithuania (both 37%), while for solid fuels the largest shares were observed in Poland (29%) and Ireland (16%).

Source  Eurostat

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