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In the study, about 7 percent. Europeans have said that they cannot heat their homes as much as they would like. The largest population is in Bulgaria. Here, a third of the people who find it difficult to heat their homes.
Out of context
Cyprus, Portugal and Greece follow Bulgaria and Lithuania, which lead in terms of the proportion of the population that cannot get warm enough. Finland, Austria, Sweden, Slovenia and Luxembourg have the lowest proportions of the population that cannot afford adequate home heating.
From the context of neighboring countries, the Lithuanian column rises significantly above. In Latvia, three times fewer people than in Lithuania cannot afford to adequately heat their homes: about 8 percent. The best situation when comparing all the Baltic countries is Estonia, which in this respect is among the countries with the smallest proportion of such population. In Estonia, it is 2.5 percent. of the total population of the country, published by Eurostat.
It can also be added that Poland is well below the table: an almost six to seven times smaller part of the population cannot afford to warm up properly than in Lithuania, in Poland such a population, about 4 percent.
Evaluate data with caution
Tadas Povilauskas, an economist at SEB Bank, says that Lithuania would assess such a high position in the results of this survey with caution, because “the Lithuanian figures look suspicious.”
“Compared to other neighboring countries, both in terms of dynamics, the proportion of the population in Lithuania that could not warm up in 2019, if it was too cold, was the same as in 2006, which seems difficult to convince, considering that the revenue grew much faster than heating prices. ” , – notes T. Povilauskas.
According to the economist, the questions arise not only from the results of the survey, but also from the writing of the survey questionnaires.
In Lithuania, a larger part of the population than the EU average lives in apartments, which could be part of the answer, because living in an apartment and not having the opportunity to regulate the heat, the question of if you have the opportunity to purchase additional heating devices.
But again, the part of the population living in apartment buildings in Latvia or Estonia is similar to that in Lithuania, so this difference should not be due to this factor.
The poverty rate between Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland is not as high as the differences between the possibilities of heating more, ”says T. Povilauskas.
As pointed out by T. Povilauskas, the opportunities for the population to additionally heat their homes should be proportionally proportional to the poverty level of the country, which, according to Eurostat data, could be said of the general distribution of the countries in the table.
Unexpected result
The Lithuanian Heat Suppliers Association (LŠTA) states in a press release that this result is surprising.
“This is a very unexpected result, considering that home heating prices in Lithuania have been steadily declining in recent years,” writes LŠTA.
The report also adds to speculation that some residents’ dissatisfaction may have been caused by the insufficiently rapid renovation process of apartment buildings and the perception that it would be much cheaper to heat quality homes.
“Most of the homes in Lithuania have central heating, in this market prices and heating bills have dropped significantly in recent years due to the warm winters.
The price of heat in Lithuania has decreased by 45 percent since 2012, ”says Vaidotas Jonutis, Baltpool’s business manager, an expert on biofuels exchange.
However, in LŠTA’s opinion, another response may be elicited by a survey of Lithuanian apartment residents conducted by Sprinter last year on behalf of the Housing Energy Saving Agency, during which similar questions were asked.
“The survey results showed that residents identified a lack of heat as the apartment building’s greatest deficiency – this is the response of about a fifth of those surveyed.
Expensive heating was mentioned only in third place, up 15 percent. surveyed. The desire to live warmly and comfortably was also cited as the main reason for renovating the apartment building.
According to LŠTA, it can be concluded from this that by seeing positive examples and realizing that the renovation in the country is not going as fast as it should, residents perceive the renovation process as the main reason for dissatisfaction with home heating .
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