Spain and Belgium tops the Europe’s robbery league: Reports

According to an analysis done by Eurostate, Spain and Belgium have almost tripled Europe’s average number of robberies, topping the robbery league.

The overall figures, which covers almost the period of 2016-2019, even before the pandemic, show that Europe’s robberies have decreased nu over 11% in that time, with an average of approximately 55 for every 100,000 people.

In Belgium, there were 146 police-reported robberies per 100,000 and 134 in Spain. The UK, which used to be part of the EU at that time, came at third, with a score of 132 and Portugal at fourth with 108 robberies. With 7.4 robberies per 100,000 persons, Hungary reports the lowest rate of robberies.

The Eurostat report involves the information on the EU, EFTA countries and several EU candidate nations and potential candidate countries.

Meanwhile, current pan-European figures have yet to be assembled. The pandemic and the combination of lockdowns and fall of tourism have resulted in a dramatic fall in most crimes in countries with high crime rates. In contrast, it had less impact upon Hungary, which already lies at the bottom in the tally of crimes.

This has especially been true in the case of Spain, where the street robbery had declined by over 34% in 2021 compared to 2019, and robbery with violence by over 22%.

Whereas, in Barcelona figures were 56% and 32% respectively, more than double those in Madrid.

As per Spain’s interior ministry, in 2018, Barcelona reported for over 17% crime rate, which was the highest spike counted, with an average of 12 robberies per hour, mainly in tourist attraction areas.

Other issues involve Spain’s high youth unemployment rate, with over 40% of under-25 age category youth in some of the regions. Petty theft is also considered as a contributing factor. The theft of less than €400 is viewed as a misdemeanour punished by a fine.