In the quarterly National Accounts published by Eurostat, they upgraded the estimate of GDP growth for the EU to +0.3% (from +0.2% previously) but the Euro-zone figure was unchanged at +0.2%. Compared to the 2nd quarter of 2024, GDP is now estimated to have grown by +0.8% in the EU and by +0.6% for the Euro-zone – both of these are unchanged from the previous data release.
Eurostat notes that the equivalent trends for the USA are quarter-on-quarter growth of +0.7%, with the economy +3.0% larger than a year earlier.
Looking at the latest data by country, only Austria, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia and Sweden saw their economies contract in the 2nd quarter; with all of these countries having a positive figure for the 1st period of the year, none are in a recession up to the middle of 2024. On that theme, zero growth in Estonia technically ends their recession that had been running for most of 2023 and into this year, although it would take only a minimal downgrading of their Q2 data to reverse this.
Comparing the latest GDP data with the position a year ago, there are 4 countries – Austria, Estonia, Finland and Ireland – whose economy is smaller now than it was in the 2nd quarter of 2023; Germany is unchanged. However, it is worth remembering that the Irish GDP data is distorted by the presence of a large number of multi-national corporations and underlying indicators suggest that the economy is growing at a reasonable pace.
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.