Other metrics like education spending, curriculum quality, and technological readiness are also included. Arguably most serious are the possible adverse effects on the heart, including high blood pressure, stroke, arrhythmias, and cardiomyopathy. Alcohol can also cause or contribute to liver steatosis (fatty liver), alcoholic hepatitis, fibrosis, and cirrhosis. Additionally, alcohol consumption has been linked to head and neck cancer, esophageal cancer, liver cancer, breast cancer, and colorectal cancer. Finally, the impaired judgement and dampened motor skills caused by intoxication can often lead to harmful accidents, particularly when driving.

  • “Hard alcohols” such as whiskey, also called “spirits” or “liquors”, go through an additional distillation process that removes some of the water, leaving a higher alcohol concentration and more flavor.
  • By default, the data for France is shown – in recent decades, here, the share of beer consumption increased to make up around a fifth of alcohol consumption in France.
  • Selling alcohol – it’s illegal to sell alcohol to anyone under 18 or to someone who is already drunk.
  • Crime and safety are important factors that can impact social, economic, and political stability.
  • If you lived in Germany, you could safely throw your first alcohol parties at the age of 16 no probs, and if you lived in Spain, you could clink glasses with your family over meals starting from 14.

Can you buy alcohol at 16 in Europe?

If you lived in Germany, you could safely throw your first alcohol parties at the age of 16 no probs, and if you lived in Spain, you could clink glasses with your family over meals starting from 14. That being said, the laws of the country don’t prohibit people of the age of 18 to have a pint of beer or a glass of wine in a public place. And if at the age of you were caught drinking at home, the only problem you could have is explaining to your parents why you helped yourself to their bar stock. This country is the trickiest one, as there’s no one robust source, revealing the same numbers.

Countries that Consume the Most Alcohol

Law is the system of rules and regulations that govern human behavior and interactions within a society. This category includes metrics such as the rule of law, judicial independence, and access to justice. Other factors such as legal framework, human rights protection, and enforcement capacity are also included. Flags are symbolic representations of states, countries, territories, or organizations. This category includes metrics such as flag design, symbolism, and history, and contains many groupings of flags based on their colors. The design and symbolism of flags can reflect a place’s history, culture, and values, and can also have a significant impact on national identity and international relations.

  • Giving alcohol to those under 16 years is considered a crime and is punishable by up to one-year imprisonment.
  • In the chart, we see the prevalence of alcohol dependence versus the average per capita alcohol consumption.
  • The ROG Ally handheld gaming console sports a 1080p touchscreen panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and FreeSync™ Premium support, this 7-inch display is truly a joy to game on.
  • Alcohol consumption is a known risk factor for a number of health conditions, and potential mortality cases.
  • They aim to capture the Europeans’ drinking status and assess the occurrence of episodes involving heavy drinking behaviours (that is consumption of large amount of alcohol).

European Drinking Statistics: Alcohol Consumption in Europe

Over 40 % of the population in Belgium (40.8 %), Luxembourg (43.1 %) and the Netherlands (47.3 %) reported drinking alcohol every week. By far, the highest proportion of persons consuming no alcohol was found in Turkey (85.1 %). The legal drinking age in Germany is 16 for beer and wine, and 18 for spirits and other distilled alcoholic beverages. This means that people who are 16 years of age or older are allowed to buy and consume beer and wine in public places such as bars, restaurants, and festivals.

Latest Education News

This is where even Germans are put to shame, among whom only one-third consume alcohol as often. In terms of alcohol consumption, the UK is ranked 20th, drinking on drinking age in europe map average about 11.4 liters of alcohol. However, Brits are certainly one of the nations that love their drinks and enjoy the conviviality that accompanies them. According to the World Health Organization, only in Lithuania every year people drink 15 liters of pure alcohol.

The ROG Ally handheld gaming console sports a 1080p touchscreen panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and FreeSync™ Premium support, this 7-inch display is truly a joy to game on. With 100% coverage of the sRGB color space, you can trust that all of your content looks exactly as the game makers intended. Powered by an AMD Ryzen™ Z1 Series APU, the ROG Ally handheld gaming console can boost framerates while retaining excellent image quality. Most of the countries in Europe have an average drinking age of 18, and most people admitted to trying their first sip of alcohol even earlier.

Grams of Pure Gaming Joy

In the chart, we see the prevalence of alcohol dependence versus the average per capita alcohol consumption. There is no clear evidence that high overall consumption (particularly in moderate quantities) is connected to the onset of alcohol dependency. In all but three EU Member States (Greece, France and the Netherlands), the share of those who drink alcohol who engage in heavy episodic drinking at least once every month was higher among those in the fifth income quintile. With reference to France, the respective share was higher among those belonging to the third income quintile group, while Greece and the Netherlands recorded their highest shares among those in the lowest income quintile group.

drinking age in europe map

This article is one of a set of statistical articles concerning health determinants in the EU which forms part of an online publication on health statistics. In 2019, slightly more than one quarter of the EU population did not drink any alcohol. In 2019, one in twelve people in the EU consumed alcohol on a daily basis.

drinking age in europe map

Other articles

This puts France, famous for its wines, in the third position in the ranking. The average age to buy alcohol in Europe is set at 18, but this age varies from country to country. We’ll answer all of these questions in this article, revealing some amazing statistics you’re unlikely to have come across before. Indicators on hazardous and total (recorded and unrecorded) alcohol consumption are included in the determinants of health chapter of the European core health indicators (ECHI). The European action plan has supported the reduction of alcohol consumption since its adoption, but room for improvement remains. More than 3 million people died worldwide as a result of alcohol abuse in 2016, and 1 million of those deaths occurred in the European Region.

Latvia had the highest increase where the consumption rose by 2.3 litres. The Netherlands, France, Cyprus and Finland also recorded above 1.5 litres declines. The amount of decrease was also between one litre and 1.5 litres in Serbia, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany. Aside from raising taxes, a 2014 report from the RAND Drug Policy Research Center suggested state-run shops (like those in Ohio and Virginia) kept prices higher, cut access to youth, and reduced overall levels of use.

Among those who drink alcohol, men were more likely than women to report having an episode of heavy drinking at least once a month in 2019. On average, the respective percentage for men was 2.3 times higher than that for women (26.3 % for men and 11.4 % for women). The pattern was uniform across all EU countries, with evident differences between the recorded proportions for the two sexes. Figure 1 presents the percentage of persons aged 15 and over drinking alcohol who reported having an episode of heavy drinking at least once a month during the twelve months prior to the survey. Almost one in five Europeans drinking alcohol ingested more than 60 g of pure ethanol on a single occasion at least once a month in 2019.