Our interactive overview of European GDP, debt and jobs
- Currency
- Economy
- GDP per person
- Unemployment
- Youth unemployment
- Debt
- Public debt
- Budget balance
- Primary balance
- Growth
- Latest GDP change
- 2013 GDP forecast
- 2014 GDP forecast
AFTER the long freeze a slow thaw is under way for the European economy. Across the 28-strong European Union, GDP will stagnate this year (after falling by 0.5% in 2012) and expand by 1.4% in 2014, according to new forecasts from the European Commission on November 5th. Across the 17-strong euro area a recovery has got under way following a double-dip recession lasting 18 months, but it is a feeble one. For 2013 as a whole GDP will fall by 0.4% (after declining by 0.6% in 2012). It will then rise by 1.1% in 2014.
As is the case this year, growth in 2014 will be strongest (4.1%) in Latvia, which is due to join the euro area in January. Indeed the three Baltic states—including Lithuania outside the euro zone and Estonia already in it—will be the three fastest-growing countries in the EU. But the main impetus behind the euro area’s recovery will be a combination of German growth of 1.7% together with a modest return to growth in Italy and Spain, the region’s third and fourth biggest economies. Outside the euro zone, Sweden and Britain are expected to do well in 2014, with growth of 2.8% and 2.2% respectively.
Next year’s worst performers will both be in the euro area, where GDP will continue to fall in two countries. Cyprus’s woes will continue, with a further contraction, of 3.9%. And Slovenia’s GDP will slip again, by 1%. Still, this marks a big improvement on this year when GDP is expected to have fallen in eight countries in the euro zone and ten in the EU.
The recovery will bring little joy for the jobless. Unemployment in the euro zone is expected to stay at 12.2% in 2014. In the EU as a whole it will dip only slightly, from 11.1% this year to 11.0% in 2014.
Our interactive graphic (updated November 5th 2013) displays the latest economic and fiscal differences across the entire European Union.
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Source: The Economist -
Source: Eurostat -
Source: Eurostat -
*15- to 24-year-oldsSource: Eurostat -
Source: European Commission -
Source: European Commission -
Source: European Commission -
*Q1 2013 or latestSource: Eurostat -
Source: European Commission -
Source: European Commission
