Poland has EU’s cheapest food (and consumer electronics)

Poland has come out at the bottom of the price tables in the categories of Food & Non-alcoholic Beverages, and Consumer Electronics, in Eurostat figures released this week. The variation between the cheapest food in the EU to the most expensive is vast, with food in Denmark costing more than triple that of Poland.

Poland also featured in the bottom three for prices in the categories of Clothing and Personal Transport Equipment. Prices were well below the EU average in the Alcoholic beverages & tobacco and Hotels and Restaurants categories.

In the overall Eurostat ranking, known as the “Price level indices for consumer goods and services, 2014” Poland is third from last, beaten to the bottom only by Romania and cheapest, Bulgaria.

The prices are at retail so include tax, thereby lower tax rates ultimately show as lower prices.

Other most-least ratings for the EU are as follows.





Category Most expensive Least expensive Food & Non-alcoholic Beverages Denmark Poland Alcoholic beverages & tobacco Ireland Bulgaria Clothing Sweden Hungary Consumer electronics Malta Poland & Czech Republic Personal transport equipment Denmark Czech Republic Restaurants & Hotels Denmark Bulgaria

Most of the categories are self explanatory, although it’s worth providing the definition for Personal transport equipment: “Motor cars, motor cycles and bicycles and excludes maintenance and repair of personal transport equipment, spare parts and fuel.”Housing rental is included in the data, housing purchase is excluded.

While Eurostat no doubt know what they are doing, the cheapest consumer electronics is a curious outcome for Poland. This reporter recalls a time when it was cheaper – including flights and accommodation – for iPhone purchasers to fly to the UK for the weekend and make their Apple purchase than it was to buy in Poland.

Of course, a single item does not an index make, with the wider category including “e.g. televisions, DVD players, receivers, audio systems, MP3 players, cameras, camcorders, desktop and laptop computers, monitors, printers, scanners, software, music CDs, movie DVDs, empty CDs and DVDs”. While they don’t actually list it, we have to assume that mobile phones are included in this category.

Although the statistics are focussed exclusively on price and don’t cover other measures like quality, speed of delivery, accessibility or selection, sometimes it’s still nice to come last.

For the record, here is the full list, from most expensive to least expensive, with the addition of some non-EU neighbours (indicated with *).

Country Price level indices for consumer goods and services, 2014 Switzerland* 154 Norway* 148 Denmark 138 Sweden 125 Finland 123 United Kingdom 122 Ireland 121 Luxembourg 120 Iceland* 117 Netherlands 111 Belguim 109 France 108 Austria 107 Italy 102 Germany 102 EU 100 Spain 93 Cyprus 89 Greece 86 Slovenia 83 Malta 83 Portugal 81 Estonia 79 Latvia 72 Slovakia 69 Croatia 67 Czech Republic 64 Lithuania 64 Turkey* 61 Hungary 57 Montenegro* 57 Poland 56 Romania 54 Bosnia & Herzegovina* 53 Serbia* 53 Albania* 50 Bulgaria 48 Former Yugoslav Rep. of Macedonia* 47



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