Belgium is the eighth most expensive country in the European Union for consumer goods and services, according to new Eurostat data reported by Euronews.
Across the 36 European countries included in the comparison, Belgium ranks 11th, with prices standing 18.1% above the EU average –meaning that a basket of goods and services costing €100 on average across the European union would cost €118,10 in Belgium.
The eighth most expensive country in the EU
Among EU member states, Belgium ranks behind Luxembourg, Denmark and Ireland, but remains more expensive than neighbouring countries such as Germany, France and the Netherlands.
Germany's prices are 9.1% above the EU average, while France stands at 6.4% above. In the Netherlands, the same basket would cost €120.40, only slightly more than in Belgium. Spain, meanwhile, remains 8.9% below the EU average.
Luxembourg is the most expensive country in the European Union, with consumer prices around 2.5 times higher than those in Romania, the bloc's cheapest member state. When non-EU countries are included, Iceland tops the ranking, followed closely by Switzerland.
Prices do not tell the whole story
"What matters for living standards is not whether prices are high but what a local wage buys locally - purchasing power, not the price tag alone," Professor Robert Inklaar of the University of Groningen told Euronews.
He explained that labour costs strongly influence prices, particularly for services such as restaurants, childcare, rent and healthcare, but also affect the cost of consumer goods through transport, retail staff and commercial rents.
Professor Rainer Maurer, a retired professor at Pforzheim University, also told Euronews that Europe's wealthiest countries generally have the highest price levels, highlighting a strong correlation between GDP and consumer prices.
The comparison is based on Eurostat's Actual Individual Consumption (AIC) price level index, which measures the cost of more than 2,000 goods and services and includes publicly funded services such as healthcare and education. The figures compare price levels only and do not take household incomes or purchasing power into account.
