The EU statistics office said the lowest proportions of smokers among people aged 15 and over was in Sweden (16.7%), the UK (17.2%), Finland (19.3%), Portugal (20%) and Luxembourg (20.4%), while the countries with most smokers were a Bulgaria (34.7%), Greece (32.6%) and Austria (30%), all with about a third of the population.

Portugal also had one of the lowest rates of passive smokers, just 8.6%, only behind Sweden (5.9%) and Finland (6,3%).

With an average of 25% of smokers overall, men (28.7%) were more likely to be smokers than women (19.5%) in all countries.

In Portugal the difference was even greater since 27.8% of men smoked compared with just 13.2% of women.