Seasonally-adjusted GDP rose by 0.7% in the European Union in the second quarter of this year, compared with the previous period, while the euro area economy increased by 0.6%, new data from Eurostat has revealed.
Compared with the same quarter in 2025, GDP was up by 1.4% in the EU and by 1.2% in the euro area, following annual increases of 0.9% in the EU and 0.6% in the euro area in the previous quarter.
GDP growth
Ireland reported by far the biggest increase in GDP in Europe in the period, on a quarter on quarter basis, of 10.2%, followed by Slovenia (+1.8%) and Lithuania (+1.7%). Austria was the only country to report a quarter-on-quarter decline.
On an annual basis, meanwhile, Malta recorded the highest growth among the Member States for which data were available, at 5.0%, followed by Slovenia (4.8%), Denmark (4.6%), Lithuania (3.8%), Poland (3.8%), Cyprus (3.3%) and Sweden (3.3%), Eurostat noted.
Household final consumption expenditure increased by 0.4% in both the euro area and EU and contributed 0.2 percentage points to GDP growth in each area. Government final consumption increased by 0.2% in the euro area and 0.1% in the EU, but its contribution to overall growth was negligible.
Elsewhere, gross fixed capital formation fell by 0.1% in the euro area but increased by 0.5% in the EU, contributing 0.0 and 0.1 percentage points to GDP, respectively.
Employment data
Eurostat’s data also indicated that the the number of employed people increased by 0.1% the EU compared with the first quarter, while employment in the euro area also increased by 0.1%.
In the second quarter of 2026, Portugal (+1.0%), Czechia and Malta (both +0.9%) recorded the highest increase in employment, while Finland (-0.8%) and Greece (-0.4%) reported declines.
Some 221.4 million people were employed across the EU during the second quarter, including 176.4 million in the euro area.
The second-quarter expansion also coincided with an increase in EU labour productivity. Eurostat reported that productivity per person employed increased by 0.9% year on year in the EU, while productivity per hour worked rose by 0.8%. In the first quarter of the year, the increases for both metrics had been 0.4%. Read more here.
