There are 20 million children in poverty in Europe.

Omissions

• The MEP uses the term 'poverty' (pobres), whereas the official Eurostat metric is 'at risk of poverty or social exclusion' (AROPE), a broader indicator that combines income-based at-risk-of-poverty, severe material and social deprivation, and very low work intensity in the household. Income-only poverty (AROP) would yield a lower figure.
• The claim refers to 'Europe', but the corroborating data covers the 27 EU Member States, not the entire European continent.
• The 2024 Eurostat data was published on 28 May 2025, after the underlying 2024 EU-SILC collection. The MEP could have known this figure by the session date of 20 May 2026. 2025 data for children specifically was not found in time to determine whether a more recent figure existed.

Sources

• PrimaryEurostat — European CommissionIn 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.
• SecondaryUNICEF — The State of Children in the European Union 2024Almost 1 in 4 children within the EU are at risk of poverty and social exclusion – a staggering 20 million children across 27 EU member states.