The share of the EU residents purchasing printed books, magazines or newspapers online remained significantly larger than that for e-books, online magazines or online newspapers in 2023. In 2023, at the EU level, 13.4% of the residents had purchased printed books online in the previous 3 months. This was a slight increase from 2022 (12.7%) but still […]
Spanish was the second most studied foreign language in upper secondary education in the EU.
In 2022, 60.8% of students in general upper secondary education across the EU studied two or more foreign languages as compulsory subjects or as compulsory curricular options, a decrease of only 0.2 percentage points compared to 2021 (61.0%). In upper secondary vocational education, this percentage was 33.8 %, a decrease of 1.1 percentage points compared […]
European elections 2024: people eligible to vote
The 2024 elections for the European Parliament are set for 6-9 June 2024. Eurostat has asked the National Statistical Institutes of the EU Member States for a dedicated data collection on the number of people eligible to vote. National estimates show that, on the election dates, the highest numbers of eligible voters are expected in Germany […]
Eurostat: Spain had the second lowest fertility rate in the European Union in 2022
In 2022, 3.88 million babies were born in the EU, a slight decrease from 4.09 million in 2021. The number of children born in the EU has been declining since 2008, when 4.68 million children were born. The total fertility rate in 2022 was 1.46 live births per woman in the EU, which is another decline, after the small increase […]
Battery-only electric cars continued to increase in 2022
In 2022, the number of battery-only electric passenger cars in the EU countries almost reached 3.0 million, which is a +55% increase compared with 2021 (1.9 million). The highest annual rate of increase in battery-only electric passenger cars in the period 2013-2022 was noted between 2019 and 2020 (+85%), followed by the increase in 2021 […]
Increase in online education in the EU in 2023
In 2023, 30% of EU internet users aged 16 to 74 reported that they had done an online course or used online learning material in the three months prior to the survey. This is a 2 percentage point (pp) increase compared with 2022 (28%). Among all EU members, the Netherlands had the highest share (54%) […]
Eurostat: Halting sharp rises in agricultural prices in the EU by 2023
First estimates of agricultural price indices for 2023 indicate a shift from the sharp price increases that characterised 2021 and 2022. In 2023, the average price of agricultural goods as a whole (output) in the EU increased by 2% compared to the previous year, while the average price of goods and services currently consumed in agriculture (inputs) […]
EU agricultural labour productivity falls by 7% in 2023
According to the first preliminary data for 2023 from the economic accounts for agriculture (EAA), the index of agricultural labour productivity in the EU is estimated to have decreased year-on-year by 6.6%, after growth between 2019 and 2022. This downturn was underpinned by a 7.9% decrease in the real value of the income generated by units […]
EU expenditure on R&D reaches €352 billion in 2022
In 2022, the EU spent €352 billion on research & development (R&D), 6.34% more than in the previous year (€331 billion) and 48.52% more than in 2012 (€237 billion). When looking at R&D intensity, i.e. R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP, data show a slight decrease from 2.27% in 2021 to 2.22% in 2022. […]