The Spanish economy is the most affected by the coronavirus crisis within the European Union, as reflected in the collapse of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which has suffered a decrease of 18.5% between April and June compared to the previous quarter, according to figures offered by Eurostat this Friday.
In turn, the EU as a whole also shows a marked decline in its productive economy, which falls by 11.7% compared to the previous three months, while the Eurozone sinks by 12.1%, suffering the greatest collapse of its history. This last figure confirms the entry of the eurozone into a technical recession and also leads to a decline in employment of 2.8% in the region.
The year- on- year perspective also leaves no doubt about the seriousness of the situation: compared to the same quarter of 2019, the EU GDP shows a contraction of 14.1%. The case of Spain under this approach is particularly hard since it falls by 22.1% compared to the second quarter of 2019.
France and Portugal appear as the most affected economies behind Spain, with falls of 13.8 and 13.9 respectively, compared to the previous quarter, and 19% and 16.3 in year-on-year terms. For their part, Finland (-3.2%), Lithuania (-5.1%), and Denmark (-7.4%) have been the countries least affected by the current crisis associated with the pandemic.
These results accentuate the forecasts made last July by the European Commission, which estimates the EU economy will experience, as an annual figure in 2020, a contraction of 8.3%. For the particular case of Spain, for the year as a whole, it foresees a fall of almost 11%.
