BusinessEurope Economic Outlook Spring 2015 – Policy action needed to make a temporary boost structural
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Released on 29 April 2015, BusinessEurope Spring Economic Outlook provides further evidence that the European economy is slowing gaining strength, while overall the recovery still remains fragile. We expect EU output to expand this year by 1.9% in the EU and by 1.6% in the Euro-area, with growth likely to further strengthen in 2016, when we foresee GDP to grow by 2.1% in the EU and by 1.9% in the Euro-area. We have revised growth prospects upward by 0.4 percentage points in the Euro-area –which is higher than the 0.2 pp upward revision for the EU as we believe the Euro-area in particular will benefit from the lower euro exchange rate. Our report highlights that to maintain a stronger recovery in the longer term, Europe must not Fwaste the current window of opportunity and must address structural obstacles to growth and improve European competitiveness.
Individual country evaluations
| Real GDP growth annual %-change | Inflation % | Unemployment % | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2016 | 2015 | 2016 | 2015 | 2016 | |
| EU28 | 1.9 | 2.1 | 0.3 | 1.5 | 9.5 | 9.0 |
| Euro-area | 1.6 | 1.9 | 0.3 | 1.2 | 10.6 | 10.1 |
| Austria | 0.8 | 1.6 | 1.2 | 1.8 | 5.3 | 5.3 |
| Belgium | 1.1 | 1.4 | 0.0 | 1.1 | 8.3 | 8.1 |
| Cyprus | 0.4 | 1.5 | 0.7 | 1.2 | 15.8 | 14.8 |
| Estonia | 2.0 | 3.3 | 0.8 | 2.1 | 7.8 | 7.7 |
| Finland | 0.9 | 1.3 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 8.8 | 8.6 |
| France | 1.2 | 1.6 | 0.4 | 1.4 | 10.2 | 10.1 |
| Germany | 2.0 | 2.0 | 0.8 | 1.6 | 5.2 | 4.8 |
| Greece | 1.7 | 2.4 | -1.9 | -0.4 | 25.0 | 22.0 |
| Ireland | 5.4 | 4.7 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 9.5 | 8.6 |
| Italy | 0.5 | 1.1 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 12.9 | 12.6 |
| Latvia | 2.0 | 3.2 | 0.5 | 1.0 | 10.5 | 10.0 |
| Lithuania | 2.6 | 3.2 | -0.4 | 0.5 | 9.3 | 9.0 |
| Luxembourg | 2.6 | 2.9 | 0.6 | 1.8 | 6.4 | 6.3 |
| Malta | 3.3 | 2.9 | 1.0 | 1.9 | 5.9 | 5.9 |
| Netherlands | 1.4 | 1.7 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 6.6 | 6.4 |
| Portugal | 1.7 | 1.9 | 0.2 | 1.1 | 12.9 | 12.2 |
| Slovak Republic | 2.5 | 3.2 | 0.4 | 1.3 | 12.8 | 12.1 |
| Slovenia | 2.0 | 1.7 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 9.3 | 8.9 |
| Spain | 2.8 | 2.6 | -0.3 | 1.4 | 22.1 | 20.0 |
| Bulgaria | 1.6 | 2.2 | 0.2 | 1.4 | 11.2 | 10.7 |
| Croatia | 0.2 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 16.8 | 16.4 |
| Czech Republic | 2.5 | 2.6 | 0.4 | 1.9 | 5.7 | 5.6 |
| Denmark | 1.3 | 1.7 | 0.5 | 1.7 | 5.9 | 5.5 |
| Hungary | 2.0 | 1.7 | 0.2 | 1.5 | 7.4 | 7.4 |
| Poland | 3.6 | 3.8 | 0.0 | 1.4 | 7.8 | 7.5 |
| Romania | 2.7 | 2.9 | 1.2 | 2.5 | 6.9 | 6.8 |
| Sweden | 3.1 | 2.6 | 0.2 | 1.0 | 7.5 | 7.5 |
| United Kingdom | 2.7 | 2.6 | 0.4 | 1.8 | 5.4 | 5.2 |
| Iceland | 2.3 | 2.5 | 2.3 | 2.8 | 4.3 | 4.0 |
| Norway | 0.8 | 1.8 | n.a. | n.a. | 4.0 | 4.0 |
| Turkey | 3.7 | 4.0 | 6.3 | 5.8 | 10.5 | 10.5 |