On Thursday, Eurostat updated its GDP database for the second quarter, only data for Luxembourg is missing from the continent. The eurozone economy grew by only 0.1 percent on a quarterly basis instead of the previously estimated 0.3 percent, and compared to the second quarter of last year, the expansion was 0.5 percent.

In the ranking of individual member states, in an annual comparison, Hungary ranks third from behind with a decrease of 2.3 per cent, with only the Estonian and Swedish economies performing worse. Topping the list were Malta, Ireland and Romania, the latter case showing that outstanding growth can also be achieved in Central and Eastern Europe.

On a quarterly basis, the performance of the Hungarian economy continued to decline, which means that it is still in recession. A GDP contraction of 0.3% in the European rating was enough for the middle end, and five countries fared worse than this. In the case of the Poles, the starkly weak decline of 3.8 per cent was revised significantly upward, but even with -2.2 per cent they are at the continent’s end. Meanwhile, the Irish and Lithuanian economies expanded impressively in the second quarter.

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