[majos]

That figure may be “% of population >= 85 years old”, where Italy does lead the EU. See p21 in this report [1] from Eurostat for a breakdown by country. About 3.45% of Italy is at least 85, compared to about 2.75 for Germany. That’s about 40% higher.

So Italy is older in the sense of “more people who are very old”. But you are right that the mortality difference so far is not explained entirely by this gap.

It may be informative to watch how this evolves in Greece, and to a greater extent (due to more infection before a lockdown) France and Spain. Those are the next oldest countries in the EU by this measure, and all are well above 3%.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/10166544/KS-...