Eurostat

A Eurostat survey on the course of food retail prices confirms what Greek consumers already know - all too well: that prices are easy to rise and hard to fall.

Eurostat marks the level of unemployment across the 28 EU member-states in March this year went down to 8%, which was at its lowest since January 2009. The overall number of unemployment Europeans dropped by no less than 1 647 million on March 2016.

A 2016 Eurostat poll on social trends and poverty indexes within the EU has found out that some 2.5M Bulgarians, or nearly 35% of the population, lived in poverty.

Greece achieved a 2016 primary surplus almost seven times higher than its bailout target, but the International Monetary Fund is doubtful that the country can keep overperforming, according to a Bloomberg report Wednesday.

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."