In the second release of GDP data for Q4-2024, Eurostat upgraded its original estimate of quarter-on-quarter growth to +0.2% for the EU (from +0.1%) and +0.1% (from zero) in the Euro-zone. This also brought a small improvement in the growth rate for the EU economy in 2024 as a whole to +0.9% (from +0.8%) but the estimate for the Euro-zone (+0.7) was unchanged.
This release also brings data for more of the individual Member States, with Q4 figures now published for 21 of the 27 countries. Of these, only 3 countries saw their economy contact in the final period of 2024 and one of these was Ireland where GDP data is volatile and largely meaningless because of the impact of European headquarters operations for multi-national companies; however, it is significant that the other two countries were Germany (-0.2%) and France (-0.1%) as these are the largest economies in the EU. In addition, Austria was flat, leaving 17 countries with growth. This means that the recessions in Austria and Hungary have ended, although Latvia, which has been negative for some time, is among those yet to release their Q4 numbers.
Comparing Q4-24 with a year earlier (note that this is different from the annual trend quoted above for the EU and Euro-zone), three countries economies were smaller than at the end of 2023; these were Austria, Germany (both -0.2%) and Estonia (-0.1%). The strongest growth on this basis was in Poland (+3.7%, Lithuania (+3.6%) and Spain +3.5%).
You can get the Eurostat figures from their website at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/main/news/euro-indicators (14 February) or request it from MTA.