One in four European children lives under the threat of poverty or social exclusion.

Omissions

• The claim does not specify a time period. The most recent Eurostat data available at the time of the speech (session date 2026-05-20) is from 2024, which shows 24.2%. A 2025 overall AROPE rate (20.9%) was published in April 2026, but a children-specific breakdown for 2025 could not be confirmed in the available sources.
• The exact Eurostat figure is 24.2%, which rounds more precisely to 'nearly one in four' or '24%' rather than exactly 25%. However, the 0.8 percentage point difference falls within standard rounding tolerance.

Sources

• PrimaryEurostat — News articleIn 2024, 19.5 million children in the EU were at risk of poverty or social exclusion. This figure represented 24.2% of children under the age of 18, down by 0.6 pp from 24.8% in 2023.
• PrimaryEurostat — Statistics ExplainedIn 2024, 24.2% of children aged less than 18 in the EU were at risk of poverty or social exclusion compared with 20.3% of people aged 18 years and over. Between 2023 and 2024, the percentage decreased from 24.8% to 24.2%.