European prices with Balkan purchasing power

Despite the increase in the minimum wage in 2023, Greece’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita expressed in purchasing power standards is 67% of the European average, according to Eurostat. 

This puts Greece in 26th place among the 27 member-states, with Bulgaria in last, where GDP per capita in purchasing power units was 64% of the European average.

The countries of the European South that were also in the throes of the economic crisis in the previous decade, such as Portugal, Spain and Italy, are ranked much higher than Greece, with GDP per capita in purchasing power units set at 83%, 89% and 97% of the European average in 2023.

Greece is also ranked below many former Eastern Bloc countries, such as Romania, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, and even Latvia, ranked 25th, has a GDP per capita in purchasing power units of 70.1% of the European average. 

At the same time, the price level is at 88.2% of the average (these are figures for 2022, as other data is not yet available from Eurostat), reinforcing the sense of extravagant prices in Greece, causing widespread dissatisfaction as all opinion polls of recent months have shown. Obviously, GDP figures are affected by tax evasion, but the fact is that, unlike prices, incomes are below pre-crisis levels. 

Greece ranks 18th, above Portugal, for example, and close to countries such as Cyprus and Spain, where the per capita income is much higher.

In Cyprus the GDP per capita in purchasing power units in 2023 was at 91% of the European average, with the price level in 2022 at 92% of the EU average.

Assessing the data of the GDP per capita and the price level for Greece through time, there was a large discrepancy during the economic crisis of the previous decade, which increased the “impoverishment” of a large part of the Greek society.