Why wouldn’t it be?
The European Commission slashed their GDP growth forecast for the European Union (excluding the United Kingdom) and the Eurozone for 2019 and 2020 citing slowing growth in China and weakening global trade.
The growth forecast for 2019 for the European Union (excluding the United Kingdom) was cut to 1.5% for 2019 (was previously forecast 2%) and for the Eurozone was cut to 1.3% (was previously forecast 1.9%).
Germany, Italy and the Netherlands all saw big downgrades for their growth outlook.
Seasonally adjusted GDP rose by 0.2% in the Euro area or Eurozone (EA) and by 0.3% in the European Union (EU) during Q4 2018, compared with Q3 2018.
22 out of the 28 Member States of the European Union (EU) currently have national minimum wages. The 6 countries in the EU that do not currently have any minimum wage level set are Denmark, Italy, Cyprus, Austria, Finland and Sweden.
Continue reading “Here are the minimum wage levels across the European Union”
We wrote about population percentage for each country by age last year. Here’s a map of population percentage for age 65 and above:
Japan has the highest percentage of over 65s at 26.56%. The other countries that make the top 25 countries for over 65s population are Italy, Germany, Portugal, Finland, Bulgaria, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, France, Croatia, Spain, Estonia, Austria, Malta, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Belgium, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Hungary all of which are in Europe.
Continue reading “Europe’s aging population is set to cause huge economic challenges”
A record of over 1 billion air passengers travelled by air in the European Union in 2017. In 2017, 1.04 billion passengers travelled by air in the European Union (EU), up by 7% compared with 2016 and by 39% compared with 2009.
In 2017, intra-EU transport represented almost half (47%) of total air passenger transport in the EU and extra-EU transport over a third (36%), while national transport accounted for fewer than 1 in every 5 passengers (17%).
Continue reading “Some aviation statistics for the European Union”
Sweden’s Central Bank, the Riksbank raised interest rates for the first time in seven years on Thursday which might cause further European monetary tightening. Riksbank’s benchmark repo rate was raised 25 bps from -0.5% earlier to -0.25%. It still remains negative though.
The overall tax-to-GDP ratio, which is the sum of taxes and net social contributions as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, stood at 40.2% in the European Union (EU) in 2017 and 41.4% of GDP for the Eurozone in 2017. These were the highest ever levels for both the European Union and Eurozone.
Continue reading “EU and Eurozone Tax to GDP ratio at highest ever level”
The European Central Bank (ECB) only started its Quantitative Easing (or QE) program in March 2015 in order to fight ultralow inflation in the Eurozone (also called the Euro Area). It somewhat worked by weakening the Euro (€), increasing exports, giving the stock market a boost and drastically lowering financing costs for European governments and corporations. This caused the ECB balance sheet to soar over €4.5 trillion or 45% of Eurozone GDP.
Both the European Commission and the IMF recently published their forecasts on growth in Europe. Both have lowered forecasts for growth between 2018 and 2020 in Europe.
Seasonally adjusted GDP rose by 0.2% in the Eurozone or Euro Area and by 0.3% in the European Union (EU) during the third quarter of 2018, compared with the previous quarter, according to a preliminary flash estimate published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In the second quarter of 2018, GDP had grown by 0.4% in the euro area and by 0.5% the European Union.
