The chart above shows the GDP and change in GDP over the last ten years in EU states. The German economy grew by more in the past ten years than the entire economy of 22 EU states.
Findings
- The difference between the state with the greatest absolute growth in GDP, Germany, and the state with the least, Cyprus, is 701,402,400,000 euros.
- Germany has 3,380 times the absolute economic growth that Cyprus does in the past ten years.
- The United Kingdom and France have swapped second and third place in GDP over the past ten years as they often do.
- Sweden surpassed Belgium and Poland to rise from ninth largest EU economy in 2008 to seventh largest EU economy in 2017. Belgium and Poland fell from eighth and seventh place to ninth and eighth place respectively.
- Greece had a larger economy than Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and Romania in 2008 and had a smaller economy than all of them in 2017.
- Aside from surpassing Greece, Ireland also surpassed Finland and Denmark.
- Luxembourg surpassed Croatia in the ten year period as did Bulgaria which also surpassed Slovenia.
- Finally, Estonia surpassed Cyprus leaving Cyprus only ahead of Malta in GDP.
Caveats
- All percentages are rounded to the nearest hundredth.
Details
Although Malta had the greatest growth in relative terms over the past ten years, it still remains the Union's smallest economy. And even though Germany had the 10th largest relative growth rate, the sheer size of its economy translates to the greatest absolute growth rate by far (over double that of the second largest absolute growth in the United Kingdom) and accounts for nearly one out of every three euros of growth in the entire EU.
The European Union as a whole grew by 2,261,676 million euros over the ten year period.
Sources
Eurostat. 2018. "Eurostat - Tables, Graphs and Maps Interface." Accessed June 26, 2018. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tec00001&plugin=1.