Spain contains general inflation but is the second largest economy in the EU with the most punishment in food

• The rise in the price of food revives requests to lower VAT, would it be effective?

Spain

has managed to go from being

to positioning itself as the country with the

in November, of

year-on-year, according to the harmonized data shared with Eurostat.

However, this relief from the rise in prices

, where Spain is the leader among the great powers of the Union.

In the month of October, the last period for which the National Statistics Institute (INE) has provided data broken down by type of product,

compared to the same month last year, a

increase since 1986, which implies in practice that milk has skyrocketed by 25% in one year;

eggs are 25.5% more expensive today;

vegetables have become more expensive by 25.7%;

chicken is 18.3% more expensive than a year ago;

and rice costs 16% more than in 2021, among many other increases registered in the supermarket.

Of the five large economies of the European Union (Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands -from highest to lowest volume of GDP-), our country ranks

, only behind

, where the shopping basket rose 19.9% ​​in October, according to Eurostat.

In France, the price of food has risen by 13.2%;

in Italy, 13.8%, and in the Netherlands, 14%

Despite the fact that Spain leads the increases in this group, it is in

of all EU countries, in fact

The biggest problems of inflation in food are found in

(45.2%) and the Baltic countries: in

they have risen by 33.3%;

in

, 30%, and in

, 28.9%.

On the other hand,

is the country where food prices rise the least (10.9%), followed by Luxembourg (11%) and Cyprus (12.5%).

Despite the fact that these are the averages by country, Spain is at the head of the five countries with the most economic weight -those that are comparable- in the price increase of many products.

Eggs have

25.5% in our country, while in German supermarkets they are sold 19.8% more expensive;

in the Dutch, 19.7%;

in the Italians, 19% and in the French, 14.8% more expensive than last year.

The same happens with

, which in Spain has shot up

compared to October last year;

while the increases in the rest are lower: in France, 7.9%;

in Italy, 6.6%;

in Germany, 6.3%, and in the Netherlands, 4.7%.

In the face of Christmas, in which families increase their food expenses for the celebrations, the Spanish will also assume a higher price increase than their European counterparts in the

.

Wine has risen in Spain by 8.3%;

while the Germans will pay 7.6% more expensive;

the French, 6.8%;

the Italians, 5.5% and the Dutch, 4% above.

Beer , for its part, has become more

by 10.7% in Spain, compared to the rise of 10.3% registered in Germany;

that of 8.5% in Italy;

that of 7.9% in the Netherlands and that of 5.8% in France.

In many other foods of daily life,

for increases in this group of five.

Bread

have shot up 19%, only behind Germany (19.6%), but ahead of the increases experienced by this basic product in Italy (15.9%), the Netherlands (11, 3%) and France (11.2%).

The same happens with

: in Germany they are now worth 24.7% more;

in Spain, 23% more;

in the Netherlands they have risen by 21.9%;

in Italy, 17.2%;

and in France, 14.1%.

In other products such as

,

,

or

the increases registered in the country are in line with those of our European neighbors.

It especially affects low incomes.

The rise in food in a general environment of inflation is especially worrying because

which means that as they are basic products that cannot be easily replaced by others -we need to buy them to feed ourselves- even though prices go up,

which makes it

For this same reason, food inflation affects all families, being especially detrimental to the purchasing power of

as these are the ones that allocate a

to making purchases in order to survive.

According to calculations by the Ministry of Agriculture, Spanish households spend around 15% of their income on food, a percentage that rises to 19.2% if families have an income of 1,000 euros or less and drops to 11% if they earn more than 5,000 euro.

These difficulties seem to become even more evident before Christmas, which is why the Government, aware of public concern, is preparing a

in which it will try to alleviate food inflation.

"All the ministers have indicated their same concern about food prices and the need to respond to them," said

, the head of

, on Wednesday, who confirmed that the Government is "working on the review of the package of the whole of measures that will be approved before the end of the year".

The president, Pedro Sánchez, was the first to advance this novelty on Tuesday in Congress.

The option of approving measures to alleviate the rise in food prices comes to the fore again after the controversy unleashed in September, when in view of the increase in inflation, the second vice president,

, asked that

leading to outright rejection from the food chain.

Now it seems that the measures would go in another direction.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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• Italy

• France

• Germany

• INE

• Pedro Sanchez

• Luis Planas

• Yolanda Diaz

• GDP

• European Union

• Inflation