World Bulletin/News Desk

More than 120 million people in the European Union were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2013, the research body of the 28-nation bloc, Eurostat, has disclosed.

Eurostat revealed in a news release on Tuesday that 122.6 million people, or 24.5 percent of the EU population, last year faced at least one out of three risk conditions: having an income below the risk-of-poverty threshold, being severely materially deprived, and living in a household with very low work intensity.

Nearly 17 percent of the EU population was at risk of poverty after social transfers, meaning their disposable income was below their national at-risk-of-poverty threshold, according to Eurostat.

Up to 10 percent of the population in the 28-nation bloc had not been able to afford to pay their bills, keep their home adequately warm, or take a one-week holiday away from home.

Around 11 percent of the EU population lived in households where the adults worked less than 20 percent of their total work potential during the past year, a problem which has been constantly rising in the EU since 2008, it said.

Countries with the highest poverty figures in the EU were Bulgaria (48 percent), Romania (40.4 percent), Greece (35.7 percent), Latvia (35.1 percent) and Hungary (33.5 percent).

Countries with the lowest poverty figures were the Czech Republic (14.6 percent), the Netherlands (15.9 percent), Finland (16 percent) and Sweden (16.4 percent). 

The 2013 poverty figures showed a slight decrease on 2012, but were higher than those from 2008, according to Eurostat.