The main objective of this paper is to examine the real economic convergence among the Central and Eastern (EU11) and Western (EU14) European Union member states in the last twenty-six years (1995 - 2021). The main problem of this research is the economic disparities in the standard of living and wealth between EU11 and EU14 member states, and the absence of a consensus among economists on whether those disparities are decreasing or not. An additional problem is that most of the papers study convergence based on PPP-based GDP per capita, which is not an accurate measure of the material well-being of households. A more accurate measure of the material well-being of households, in addition to PPP-based GDP per capita, is PPP-based actual individual consumption (AIC) per capita, which is the added value of this paper besides the analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. For this study, data from secondary sources of the World Bank international database were used, whereby the data were converted into a per capita measure divided by the midyear population. Descriptive statistics (standard deviation, and coefficient of variation), and regression method (linear regression model) were used for analysis in the paper. The results prove the existence of a convergence process among EU11 and EU14 member states in the last twenty-six years, according to both indicators (GDP and AIC), even during the pandemic. The only divergence period was during the global financial crisis (2009 and 2010). The problem is that the convergence process is extremely slow and it should be encouraged by the growth-enhancing country’s economic policy, which is the main implication of this paper. The research limitation is a short period of research and analysis based on two economic indicators. The inclusion of a wider range of indicators, such as labour productivity and the employment rate is a proposal for further scientific research.