In the quarterly National Accounts published today by Eurostat it has confirmed that GDP for both the EU and the sub-set of the Euro-zone grew by +0.3% compared to the previous quarter. Compared to the 1st quarter of 2023, seasonally adjusted GDP grew by +0.6% in the EU and +0.5% in the Euro-zone – in both cases, these figures are 0.1 percentage points up on the previous estimate.
It is also worth noting that this upgrading of earlier data now means that the -0.1% fall in GDP for the Euro-zone in the 4th quarter has been revised up to “no change” – the estimate for the EU has not been revised from the same position of “no change”.
Looking at the latest data by country, only Denmark, Estonia and the Netherlands among the EU Member States recorded a negative trend for their GDP in the 1st quarter of 2024. However, only Estonia is in a recession (defined as 2 or more consecutive quarters of negative growth), with Denmark and the Netherlands having seen their economy’s grow in the final period of 2023.
On that theme, growth in the 1st quarter of 2024 meant that the recessions in Finland, Ireland and Lithuania ended.
Comparing the latest GDP data with the position a year ago, there are 7 countries whose economy is smaller now than it was in the 1st quarter of 2023 – these are Austria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. However, it should be noted that the presence of a large number of multi-national corporations in Ireland distorts the economic data and GDP is not really as reliable indicator as it is for most other countries.
You can get the full details from the Eurostat website at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Quarterly_national_accounts_-_GDP_and_employment or requested it from MTA.