Eurostat

The Greek property market was the only one in the European Union to post a year-on-year decline over the last quarter of 2016, according to figures released on Monday by Eurostat using data from the Bank of Greece.

A Eurostat poll shows that the average hourly payment rate for the EU in 2016 was EUR 25.4, quoted by BTA.

 It was lowest in Bulgaria (barely EUR 4.4), Romania (EUR 5.5), Lithuania (EUR 7.3), Latvia (EUR 7.5), Hungary (EUR 8.3) and Poland (EUR 8.6).

The European Commission has presented Eurostat data, showing that last year Bulgaria received barely 1.6% (18,990) of all requests for asylum in the EU, quoted by BNR.

There was a 6% drop on 2015. Citizens of Afghanistan submitted the greatest number of requests (8,645), followed by ones of Iraq (5,240) and Syria (2,585).

The European Statistical Body (Eurostat) revealed that Greece was the only EU country with negative growth, while the GDP had contracted by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. The data is second blow in just two days of the Greek PΜ Alexis Tsipras’s “growth narrative” during an address of his party members, Monday.

Internal devaluation in Greece mainly concerns salaries and not the prices of commodities, the International Monetary Fund said in a recent report, suggesting that living in this country has become much more expensive due to the decline of incomes and increases in taxes.

Mariana Kotzeva has become the Acting Director-General of Europe's statistics body, Eurostat, as of the beginning of this year, the agency has said.

In a press release dated January 24 (three weeks after Kotzeva assumed office), Eurostat says her appointment "follows the retirement of Walter Radermacher, in charge of Eurostat from August 1, 2008 until the end of last year."

More than a third, or 37.8 percent, of children aged up to 17 in Greece were at risk of poverty and social exclusion in 2015, compared to 28.7 percent in 2010, according to a report published by the European Statistics Agency (Eurostat).

About 85% of Bulgarians own their own home, which is one of the highest indicators in the European Union, according to Eurostat data on housing conditions in the 28 EU countries as of 2014.

The average size of housing in Bulgaria is around 72 sq.m and 96 sq.m. in the EU.

Every third Bulgarian lives in dire material straits. 78.5% of households in the country have at their disposal a total income per one person below the means necessary to live.

BGN 2,235 are needed for a four-member family in order for them to live in a normal way in September.

More than half of Bulgarians between 15 and 29 years of age live in inferior living conditions, showed an analysis of Eurostat, cited by BTA.