Cyprus ranks last among the EU countries as regards heavy episodic drinking, the EU Statistical Service says.
According to the statistic on the frequency of alcohol consumption in the EU in 2019, heavy episodic drinking is defined as ingesting the equivalent of more than 60g of pure ethanol on a single occasion. Among the EU Member States, between 4% (Cyprus and Italy) 6% (Greece, Spain) and 38% (Denmark) Romania (35%) and Luxembourg (34%) of adults reported taking part in heavy drinking episodes at least once a month.
Among these, the majority did so every month, while a smaller proportion (between 3 to 19 times smaller) engaged in the behaviour at least once a week.
In 2019, 8.4% of the EU adult population consumed alcohol daily, 28.8% weekly, 22.8% monthly and 26.2% never consumed or hadn’t consumed any in the last 12 months.
Daily alcohol intake was the most frequent in Portugal, with a fifth (20.7%) of the population consuming alcohol every day, followed by Spain (13.0%) and Italy (12.1%). In contrast, the lowest share was around 1.0% in Latvia and Lithuania.
In the Netherlands, almost half of the population (47.3%) consumed alcohol on a weekly basis, closely followed by Luxembourg (43.1%) and Belgium (40.8%).
Monthly consumption in the EU was the highest in Lithuania with 31.3%, Latvia (31.1%) and Cyprus (30.4%).
Among the EU Member States, Croatia reported the highest share of the population (38.3%) who never consumed alcohol or had not consumed any in the last 12 months.
In all the European countries, women accounted for a significantly higher share of individuals that never consumed alcohol or had not consumed any in the last 12 months. The largest gender gap was found in Cyprus (12.8% men vs. 44.2% women), Bulgaria (16.2% vs. 42.0%) and Italy (21.5% vs. 46.7%).
