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.
 

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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