Towers are being built, but 38% of Albanians cannot heat their homes, a record in Europe

2025-01-24 07:28:00, Ekonomi CNA

Towers are being built, but 38% of Albanians cannot heat their homes, a record

Albania is fortunate to have relatively mild weather during the winter, otherwise its inhabitants would suffer greatly from the cold.

Eurostat has published a report measuring the percentage of the population that fails to keep their home warm enough for 2023.

Albania ranks first in Europe, with 37.7% of people estimated to not heat their homes sufficiently (Albania data is from 2021), compared to the European average of 10.6%. The lack of central heating and the use of electricity for heating, which is expensive, make this vital need a luxury for Albanian families.

The countries of the region, for which there is information in the report, rank much better than Albania. In Serbia, a much colder country than us, only 9.5% of the population cannot heat their homes (data from 2022), lower than the EU average. In Montenegro the indicator is 13.9% (2022). In North Macedonia, the indicator was 23% for 2020.

The construction boom of recent years does not seem to have contributed to improving the quality of life of families. Historical data shows that this indicator has fluctuated between 35-37% for the entire period 2017-2021, when data is reported. In fact, in 2021, the indicator deteriorated compared to the previous year, when it had dropped to 35.8%.

Fortunately, Albania has plenty of sunshine. According to meteorology data, World Weather Online, Albania has around 2,400 to 2,600 hours of sunshine per year, ranking it as one of the countries with the most sunny days in Europe, especially in the coastal and southern regions of the country. The sunniest country in Europe is Spain, followed by France and Italy.

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According to Eurostat, in 2023, 10.6% of the European Union population were unable to keep their homes very warm. Compared to 2022, this figure increased by 1.3 percentage points.

The highest share of people unable to keep their homes warm was observed in Spain and Portugal (20.8% each), followed by Bulgaria (20.7%), Lithuania (20.0%) and Greece (19.2%).

On the other hand, the lowest percentages were recorded in Luxembourg (2.1%), Finland (2.6%), Slovenia (3.6%), Austria (3.9%) and Estonia (4.1%)./ Monitor Magazine