Bulgaria had EU’s largest share of daily smokers in 2019 – Eurostat

Bulgaria had the largest share of daily cigarette smokers in the European Union in 2019, as well as the bloc’s highest share of people who smoked 20 or more cigarettes a day, according to figures released on November 12 by EU statistics agency Eurostat.

Eurostat said that across the EU member states, the countries with the largest shares of daily cigarette smokers were Bulgaria (28.7 per cent), Greece (23.6 per cent), Latvia (22.1 per cent), Germany (21.9 per cent) and Croatia (21.8 per cent).

In contrast, the countries with the smallest shares of daily smokers were Sweden (6.4 per cent), Finland (9.9 per cent), Luxembourg (10.5 per cent), Portugal (11.5 per cent) and Denmark (11.7 per cent).

In 2019, 18.4 per cent of the EU population aged 15 years or more reported that they were daily cigarette smokers. In fact, 12.6 per cent of the EU population consumed fewer than 20 cigarettes per day, while 5.9 per cent consumed 20 or more cigarettes on a daily basis, Eurostat said.

The proportion of smokers who consumed 20 cigarettes or more per day ranged between one per cent in Sweden and 12.9 per cent in Bulgaria.

At the same time, the share of smokers who consumed fewer than 20 cigarettes varied between 5.3 per cent in Sweden and 15.8 per cent in Bulgaria.

In 2019, there were more smokers among the male population than the female population: 22.3 per cent of men aged 15 years old and over were daily cigarette smokers, compared with 14.8 per cent of women.

At country level, the proportion of men who smoked daily ranged from a low of 5.9 per cent in Sweden to a high of 37.6 per cent in Bulgaria.

For women, this ranged between 6.8 per cent in Sweden and 20.7 per cent in Bulgaria.

In all EU member states, the proportion of daily cigarette smokers was higher among men than among women, apart from in Sweden and Denmark.

In Sweden, the share of men who smoked daily was 0.9 percentage points (pp) less than the share of daily female smokers, while in Denmark the proportion of male smokers who smoked daily was 0.1 pp less than the share of daily female smokers, Eurostat said.

(Photo: Zsuzsanna Kilian/sxc.hu)

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