(Brussels) “In 2015, around 119 million people in the European Union, that is, 23.7% of the population, were at risk of poverty or social exclusion”. This is according to a report issued today by Eurostat to mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. This means that these people were threatened by at least one of the following three conditions: income poverty; severe material deprivation; and families with very low work intensity (underemployment, unemployment, difficulties for young people to find a job). According to Eurostat, after three consecutive increases in the level of poverty between 2009 and 2011 to reach almost 25% of the European population, from 2012 that figure has continuously decreased to reach the level of last year. The current figure is thus the same as in 2008, the year in which the economic crisis began. Eurostat also notes that the highest at-risk-of-poverty or social-exclusion rate is recorded in Bulgaria (41.3% of the total population), followed by Romania (37.3%) and by Greece (35.7%). At the opposite end of the scale, we find the Czech Republic (14.0%), Sweden (16.0%), the Netherlands, Finland and Denmark. Among the largest countries, the rate stands at 17.7% in France, at 20.0 in Germany, at 28.7 in Italy, at 23.5 in the UK, at 23.4 in Poland, and at 28.6 in Spain.