The crises of recent years, the lack of a real reform in the social system, the burdening of Romanians with the multitude of taxes and fees, as well as the salary discrepancies, position Romania in the area with the highest risk of poverty in Europe. The data are alarming, and one effect could be the decrease in the credibility of the Romanian state on the international financial markets, as well as the decrease in the country coefficient.
Could the country rating for Romania decrease in 2023?
In the third month of this year, according to the rating institutions, Romania’s credit ratings were announced as having a stable outlook. EU membership, strong medium-term growth potential and moderate public debt support the ratings, rating analysts said. But, nevertheless, structural budget and current account deficits and moderate reserve coverage remain challenges for the rating.
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In the same month, Scope Ratings GmbH confirmed Romania’s ratings for the issuer’s long-term debt and senior unsecured debt, both in local currency and in foreign currency, with a stable outlook. The issuer’s short-term ratings have been affirmed, both in local currency and in foreign currency, with a stable outlook.
However, the year-end 2022 statistics showed that the at-risk-of-poverty rate was 21.20% in December 2022, according to Eurostat. We remind you that the poverty risk rate reached an all-time high of 25.40% in December 2015 and an all-time low of 21.20% in December 2022.
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According to the same Eurostat data, the highest percentages of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion were recorded in Romania, at 34%, Bulgaria, with 32%, Greece and Spain, both with 28%. Conversely, the lowest percentages of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion were recorded in the Czech Republic with a percentage of 11%, Slovenia with 13% and Finland with only 14%.
95.3 million people in the EU are at risk of poverty or social exclusion
According to the Eurostat study, this was the population figure at this threshold last year, representing the equivalent of 21.6% of the total population in Europe. Of this total, approximately 5.6 million lived in households facing all three risks of poverty and social exclusion simultaneously.
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Last year’s data shows that there were 11.3 million people in the EU who were both at risk of poverty and in a household with very low work intensity. Their relevance given the fact that this number of people did not face serious material and social shortages.
Another 8.8 million people were at risk of poverty and at the same time with serious material and social deprivation, and almost 2.2 million people lived in households with very low work intensity and at the same time they were facing serious material shortages, according to Eurostat.
In Romania, the greatest risk of poverty in Europe
The figures are alarming for the year 2022, and most of them come against the background of an acute crisis and the lack of social reforms in most of the states that appear in the top access made by Eurostat. According to them, more than a fifth of people living in households with dependent children in the EU were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, which is slightly higher than the share among households without dependent children, namely a percentage of 20.8%.
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However, these rates varied considerably between EU member states. For people living in households with dependent children, the rate ranged from peaks of 36.0% in Romania, 30.7% in Bulgaria and 29.2% in Spain to 11.7% in Denmark, 11.3 % in the Czech Republic and 8.9 % in Slovenia. For those in households without dependent children, the rates ranged from 34.5% in Estonia, 33.8% in Bulgaria and 33.4% in Latvia to 14.5% in Luxembourg, 12.3% in the Czech Republic and 11.4% in Slovakia.
