The Maltese have overtaken the Greeks and now lie in 16th place in the rich list of 27 EU member states.

According to new data showing GDP per capita, last year Malta surpassed Greece for the first time since the island joined the EU in 2004.

This, of course, is partly due to the fact that, in the teeth of crippling austerity measures, Greece’s GDP per capita last year fell to 82 percent of the EU’s average, from 90 per cent in 2010.

But the other reason is that Malta’s wealth has reached 83 per cent of the EU average – an increase of one per cent over 2010 and a full five percentage points since joining the EU in 2004.

In 2010, the Greeks were eight percentage points richer than the Maltese.

The figures, published by Eurostat, are calculated in PPS (Purchasing Power Standard), an artificial currency unit that eliminates price level differences between countries.

Besides its 16th placing in the EU list, Malta is the third wealthiest of the ‘new’ member states that joined the EU in 2004, following Cyprus (92 per cent) and Slovenia (84 per cent).

The island’s growing relative prosperity has its downside, however. It is now far above the 75 per cent GDP threshold used as a calculation in EU budget negotiations to decide which countries should be eligible for maximum cohesion funds.

This will make Malta’s case in the ongoing negotiations to be treated as an Objective 1 member state even more difficult.

Luxembourg has the highest standard of living in the EU with a GDP per capita of 274 per cent of the average. The Grand Duchy in the heart of the continent is followed by the Netherlands (131 per cent) and Austria (129 per cent).

On the other hand, Romania (49 per cent) and Bulgaria (45 per cent), both ‘new’ member states, remained the poorest countries of the EU.