The EU Has Come a Long Way with Internet Access

At the beginning of the 21st century, nearly 2 decades ago, country wide gaps in internet access were common and expansive in Europe. According to data from Eurostat, in 2002, only 20 percent of people in Spain had used the internet within the past 3 months. For Germany, about half of surveyed people had accessed the internet within that same time frame, while about 56 percent of respondents from the United Kingdom had accessed the internet.

In 2008, just six years later, a significant majority had accessed the internet in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Spain, with usage rates hovering around 60 to 70 percent within the past quarter. By 2018 all countries had achieved near-universal use within the past three months, with Spain showing the highest growth out of selected countries between 2002 and 2018, reporting a 66 percent jump in internet use.