Awful! Only 5 countries in the EU spend more on alcoholic drinks than Hungary
Hungarian households spend almost twice as much on alcoholic drinks than the EU average. This means that we spend the most in the region and Hungary is the sixth on the overall EU list, meaning that only the residents of the Baltic countries, Poland and the Czech Republic spend more on alcohol than Hungarians.
According to Eurostat’s recent report, in 2017 households in the European Union spent 1.6 % of their expenditure on alcoholic drinks. This is 130 Billion € in total, which is 0.9 % of the entire GDP of the European Union. If we project it on the citizens of the EU, then each person drank 300 € worth of alcoholic drinks, but note that this report does not include those beverages sold in hotels and restaurants – Penzcentrum.hu wrote.
Some initiatives try to mitigate the drinking problem, Dry November, for example, tried to entice women to quit drinking for a month.
It is evident from the chart that the Baltic countries are the leaders if it comes to spending money on alcohol. Estonia is on the first place, with a whopping 5.2 % of their domestic expenditure spent on alcoholic beverages, Latvia is close behind with their 4.9 %, and Lithuania is a little bit behind, but still quite strong with 4%. Hungary won the 6th place overall with 3 % of the expenditure of households spent on alcohols; this is shockingly almost twice the average in Europe.
From the data, it is evident that the neighbouring countries of Hungary do not spend as much on drinks. Romanians spend 2.7 %, Slovakians spend 2.5 % of their budget on alcohol, which is somewhat close to our numbers, but still lower, but Austrians spend below the EU average, they set apart 1.4 % of their budget to buy drinks.
Not only alcoholic beverages can be dangerous, however. Be careful if you consume energy drinks, they might cause problems.
Always remember to drink responsibly.
Source: penzcentrum.hu