Czechia

House prices and rents in the EU have followed very different paths since the financial crisis. While rents increased steadily throughout the period up to the third quarter of 2019, house prices have fluctuated significantly, Eurostat data showed.

In the EU in 2017, there were on average 116 prisoners per 100 000 people, a rate which is the lowest since 2000, Eurostat reported.

In 2018, households in the European Union (EU) spent 13.2% of their total consumption expenditure on transport. This represents a total expenditure of over €1.1 trillion, equivalent to 7.2% of the EU's GDP or €2 220 per EU inhabitant, Erostat data showed.

The EU Commission announced on Dec. 18 that it will provide financial support to member states who made a collective pledge of more than 30,000 refugee resettlement places.

EU member countries made the pledge during the two-day Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, which was co‐hosted by the UN and Switzerland and co-convened by Turkey, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Germany and Pakistan.

In the EU, an estimated 42% of plastic packaging waste was recycled in 2017. In seven EU Member States, more than half of the plastic packaging waste generated was recycled in 2017.

Between 2011 and 2017, police-recorded robberies in the EU fell by 24%, from 522 thousand to 396 thousand. By contrast, there was a 4% increase between 2008 and 2011.

Every third Bulgarian lives at risk of poverty or social exclusion, Eurostat data for poverty level in the Member States in 2018 showed. About 2.3 million people in the country live below the poverty line, which in Bulgaria is officially BGN 350 per month.

Romanian tennis player Sorana Cirstea qualified, on Friday, for the final of the 250,000-dollar WTA tournament in Tashkent (Uzbekistan), after defeating Katarina Zavatska (Ukraine) in the next to last act, by 6-0, 6-3. Cirstea (29 years old, WTA #96), seeded eighth, will play her second final in Tashkent, after conquering there her only singles' title in her career, in 2008.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis on Sept. 3 encouraged Turkish companies to increase their investment in Czechia, formerly called the Czech Republic, especially in the construction sector.     

From the 5.1 million deaths reported in the European Union (EU) in 2016, 3 300 (0.06%) were due to assault. The majority of victims were men (65%), Eurostat reports.

The assault-related death rate is falling. In 2002, the first year for which data are available, the rate stood at 1.3 per 100 000 inhabitants and has gradually decreased since then, reaching 0.6 per 100 000 in 2016.