Economic growth in the Eurozone and across the EU slowed down expectedly in the fourth quarter of last year, according to the latest estimate by Eurostat. Although economic expansion in Bulgaria is also weakening, it remains one of the relatively good ones within the EU. European statistics also show a relatively positive increase in European employment at the end of 2019.

According to Eurostat, the combined gross domestic product of the 19 Eurozone countries increased by only 0.1% in the fourth quarter of last year after a 0.3% increase three months earlier. The previous Eurostat evaluation was thus confirmed. This is the weakest growth since the beginning of 2013.

France’s GDP contracted by 0.1% and Italy by 0.3%, while the German economy stagnated at the end of last year, had a negative impact on the economic performance of the Eurozone. The fourth and fifth largest economies, Spain and the Netherlands, reported an increase of 0.5% and 0.4% respectively.

On a year-on-year basis, euro area GDP grew in the last three months of 2019 by 1.0% (a slight upward revision from a previous Eurostat estimate of 0.9%) after rising by 1.3% in the third quarter.

Eurostat also presented data confirming a slowdown in economic growth across the EU at the end of 2019. The GDP of the 27 EU Member States (excluding the UK) rose by 0.2% in the fourth quarter after a 0.4% increase in the third quarter, while year-on-year growth slowed to 1.2% from 1.6% in June-September 2019.

Over the past year, the euro area economy grew by 1.2% and the EU-27 by 1.5%.

Bulgaria ranks eighth in the EU with GDP growth on a quarterly basis of 0.8% at the end of last year. The strongest economic growth of 1.8% was reported in Ireland, followed by Malta (1.7%) and Romania (1.5%). At the other pole are Finland and Greece (-0.7%), Italy (-0.3%), France (-0.1%) and Germany (0.0%).

With GDP growth of 3.1% year-on-year, Bulgaria also faces seven countries, with Ireland showing the strongest economic expansion (GDP jump of 6.3%), followed by Hungary (+4.6%), Malta (+4.3%), Romania (+4.2%), Estonia (+3.4%).