Campania and Calabria have a risk of poverty comparable to that of a territory in South America. This is what emerges from Eurostat data, which also includes French Guiana. The two Italian regions are among those where there is the greatest risk of becoming poor, together with the former colony and the Spanish cities on the Moroccan coast, in Africa.
However, Italy manages to cover the entirety of this ranking. The autonomous province of Bolzano, in fact, is the area of Europe with the lowest risk of poverty ever.
Calabria and Campania among the regions with the greatest risk of poverty in the EU
In the ranking of the European regions with the most people at risk of poverty and social marginalization, Campania (43.5%) and Calabria (48.8%) are respectively in the penultimate and last place among those actually located in Europe. Worse than them are only the city of Melilla (44.5%), Spanish but located on the northern coast of Africa, and French Guiana (59.5%), an overseas territory in South America, on the Caribbean Sea.
In general, the data published by Eurostat shows a deeply divided Italy. The South, which in this case starts from Lazio and Abruzzo, ranks among the lowest in Europe for the number of people at risk of poverty. In the North (which in this case includes Umbria and Marche) not only is things better but there are some of the regions with the absolute lowest risk of social marginalization.
The comparison with other European countries
In total in Europe there are only 25 regions where 33% of the population or more is at risk of poverty. 5 of these are located in Greece, 4 each for Spain, Italy, Bulgaria and Romania and 3 regions of France, which however Eurostat specifies are “ultraspecific” areas, overseas territories that are not geographically located in Europe.
Among the other two Italian regions in this situation, one is Sicily (40.9%), fourth to last among the regions that are actually in Europe, with only Ionia Nisia, in Greece, which stands between the three Italian regions. The other is Puglia, with 37.3%. Of Italy’s poorest regions, Campania and Sicily saw an improvement in this figure compared to 2023, while Calabria and Puglia worsened slightly.
South Tyrol has the lowest risk of poverty
The Italian situation is paradoxical when you look at the top of the rankings. Among the regions with the lowest risk of poverty, many are Italian:
- Veneto (12.4%);
- Friuli-Venezia Giulia (12.4%);
- Marche (11.8%);
- Valle d’Aosta (10.7%);
- Emilia-Romagna (10.1%).
But the most surprising is the first in the ranking, Alto Adige. The autonomous province of Bolzano closes with only 6.6% of the population at risk of poverty, making Italy both first and last in the ranking which considers only the territories located in Europe. The President of the Province Arno Kompatscher declared:
We have climbed the rankings in recent years, but we can always do better and more, because even the best statistics do little to help those who are in difficulty. For this reason we have introduced a new support measure for people with very low pensions, which will start with the first payment at the end of the year.
