The EU economy, overwhelmed by American customs duties, competition from Chinese automotive products and high energy prices driven by the green deal, is only moving forward by momentum. In the first quarter of this year GDP has increased, but… by just 1 percent year to year – according to calendar-adjusted data published by Eurostat on Wednesday.
The last such low growth was in Q2 2024, when the EU economy grew by only 0.8%. rdr. The data shows which countries were responsible for such a poor result.
This is not Poland, because there is no data for Poland for Q1 2026 yet, and besides, in the face of the money flowing to us for investments from KPO, there will be no bad data in our case. First of all, you need to write that the current growth engine of the Community, i.e. Ireland, has jammed. This one got used last year. to double-digit growth, and now it has informed o GDP decline by 6.3 percent rdr. However, a year ago in the corresponding quarter there was an increase of as much as 18.4%, so it was difficult to break away from such a high base.
The slowdown in our neighbors is also bad. Lithuania in the fourth quarter of last year grew by 3.3%. year to year, but in the first quarter of 2026 it is only +2.5%. rdr. The Czech Republic decreased the dynamics from +2.7 to +2.1%. rdr. Tiny Cyprus dropped from +4.3 to 3%.
Germany, although it previously seemed that there was no reason to slow down, has slowed down its growth rate from +0.4 to +0.3 percent. The second economy of the EU, France, dropped from +1.3 to +1.1 percent. in 1Q26, the third economy, i.e. Italy, recorded a GDP slowdown from +0.9 to +0.7 percent. Among the large countries, a slight acceleration took place in Spain.
