Shqip
Luaj me Fjalëkryq
Lajme flash

How Albania reached and exceeded the EU average… with food prices

2026-09-21 08:29:00 / EKONOMI&SOCIALE ALFA PRESS

For more than three decades, the priority of Albanian governments has been the country's integration into the European Union. In fact, the current government has made EU integration its main promise.

And in fact, the formal process has progressed significantly in recent years: Albania has opened all negotiation chapters and in July 2026 temporarily closed the first three.

But there is at least one indicator where Albania has not only caught up with Europe, but has already surpassed it: food prices.

In 2025, the food price level in Albania reached 103% of the European Union average, exceeding the 100% reference for the first time. So, a food basket that costs an average of 100 in the EU, costs around 103 in Albania, measured according to purchasing power standards.

In 2016, when the lowest level was recorded, since 2005, when the earliest data were reported, food prices were 66% of the EU average. In 9 years, the indicator increased by 36 percentage points.

Meanwhile, Albania's GDP per capita in 2025 was only 43% of the EU average, while actual individual consumption per capita (AIC), which better reflects the real consumption power of households, was 48%, up from 30% and 37% respectively in 2016, remaining among the last in Europe.

Prices made their way to Europe much faster

The long-term trend makes the contrast even more striking. In 2005, the level of food prices in Albania was only 73.8% of the EU average. In the following years, there was even a period when the gap with Europe widened: in 2013-2015, food cost only about 67% of the European average.

Then the trend changed.

From 67.7% of the EU average in 2015, the food price index rose to 81.2% in 2019, to 84.9% in 2022, to 90.7% in 2023, almost equaled the EU in 2024 with 99.6% and in 2025 surpassed it, reaching 102.9%.

In the same period, the real consumption/income per capita indicator relative to the EU improved much more slowly: from around 38% in 2015 to 48% in 2025, only 10 percentage points.

During this period, food prices approached Europe's more than three times faster than the economic power of the Albanian consumer.

But the recent jump in income should also be read in light of the population review after the 2023 Census. The number of inhabitants was around 2.4 million, down from 2.8 million in the 2011 Census, which, for the same size of the economy or consumption, automatically increases the value of the per capita indicators.

Consequently, part of the improvement is statistical and does not necessarily represent an increase by the same measure of the real well-being of individuals.

Albania, the exclusion of the region

The price hike is not simply a consequence of the fact that the entire Western Balkans is converging with European prices.

In 2025, Albania was the only country in the region where food prices had exceeded the EU average.

Serbia was at 96.6% of the European average, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina at 84.6%, while North Macedonia at only 74.3%.

And the gap continues to widen. In July 2026, food and non-alcoholic beverage prices in Albania rose by 3.2% year-on-year, five times faster than the EU average of 0.6%. In Serbia, meanwhile, food prices were 5.6% lower than a year earlier and in North Macedonia 0.3% lower.

The illusion of income growth

Although per capita income has increased rapidly and Albania has risen to third place in the region in nominal terms, with $11.2 thousand per capita in 2025, real purchasing power remains significantly lower.

When adjusted for prices, Albania drops to fourth place, with only 23.4 thousand international dollars per capita, far below North Macedonia with 29.7 thousand.

The reason is that the country has become very expensive very quickly: the general price level reached 72.6% of the EU average, while food prices reached 102.9%, causing income growth to translate into much more limited purchasing power. / O.Liperi, Monitor

Po ndodh...

Dua të lexoj më shumë lajme

ide

top

10:22 AKTUALITET

09:10 BOTA

10:40 AKTUALITET

receta Alfa

TRENDING

shërbime

  • POLICIA129
  • POLICIA RRUGORE126
  • URGJENCA112
  • ZJARRFIKESJA128