More than one in three Greeks was at risk of poverty and social exclusion at the end of 2013, according to figures made public by the European Commission’s statistics service, Eurostat this week.

The statistics showed that 3.9 million Greeks, or 35.7 per cent of the population, were close to the poverty line at the end of last year, compared to 28.1 per cent in 2008, before the country’s economic crisis struck.

The proportion of Greeks at risk of poverty or social exclusion puts Greece behind Bulgaria and Romania in European Union rankings, which assess people as being on the poverty threshold when they are living on 60 per cent less than the national average disposal income.

Bulgaria topped the chart with nearly half (48 per cent) of its citizens found to be living close to the poverty line, followed by Romania with 40 per cent of its population deemed to be at risk of poverty.

The lowest rates of poverty and social exclusion were recorded in the Czech Republic (14.6 per cent), the Netherlands (15.9 per cent), Finland (16 per cent) and Sweden (16.4 per cent).

The results of a survey carried out by Greece’s National Centre for Social Research (EKKE) and presented by the University of Athens indicated that the financial crisis has led Greeks to cut back on entertainment.

Greeks have cut back on cultural pursuits by an average of 15 per cent over the past two years according to the EKKE survey, which said many respondents claimed not to have seen a concert or a play in several years.

Source: Kathimerini