The table provides a comparison of alcohol consumption levels across Europe.
Direct comparison is difficult as countries collect data in different ways.
If data were available in a more standardised form, differences between ages, men and women, and various social classes could be extracted more easily. Lowest levels are found in Turkey, Krygyzstan, Turkmenistan, Israel and Armenia, which all have levels below 3 litres per head and do not appear in the table. Trends over time Consumption has been falling since 1980 in some countries, notably Italy, Spain and France, but rising in others - Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Macedonia and the Czech Republic. In several Eastern European countries which have undergone major political, social and economic change, the pattern is a decline in recorded consumption but a sharp rise in unrecorded drinking. The UK, Denmark, Sweden and Finland had stable patterns, or only minor fluctuations, over this period.