The economy and jobs accelerate in Europe

Port of Barcelona, ​​where between 3,000 and 4,000 trucks pass a day to load and unload containers.Rasmus Jurkatam / (Getty Images)

The pandemic has not yet said its last word and all of Europe is awaiting the German elections on September 26, but there is no crisis that lasts 100 years: the European economy accelerates and closed the second quarter with growths above 2% and with a strong boost in employment, according to data from the EU statistical agency, Eurostat. In annual terms - if the comparison is made with respect to the same quarter of the year 2020, in the hardest part of the pandemic - growth goes up to 14.3%, above China and the United States. consumption improvement, after two quarters of decline due to confinements.

The favorable wind of recovery blew into the sails of all the economies of the Union, with the only exceptions of Malta and Croatia.

And yet you have to put things in perspective: European GDP is 2.5% below pre-pandemic levels, while the United States, with a much more expansive combination of fiscal and monetary policies led by Joe Biden and of its central bank, it is already clearly above pre-crisis levels.

More information

• The sharp slowdown in employment in the US raises concerns about the impact of the delta variant on the recovery

• The EU trusts in an economic 'boom' thanks to the savings of families during the pandemic

• Economic recovery gains momentum

The European spring was very favorable. GDP grew 2.2% in the euro zone (compared to the previous estimate, which left that figure at 2%) and 2.1% across the Union- Ireland and Portugal led the recovery, with Spain also clearly above the average and an advance close to 3%. Europe is awaiting the Brussels decision on the suspension of fiscal rules (which could end in 2023) and the new strategy of the European Central Bank, which will be known in just a few days.

For these two decisions, which are crucial for the economic policy of the euro - even more so for the most indebted countries, such as Italy and Spain - it is essential to closely follow the curves with GDP levels. And the sinkhole caused by the coronavirus is far from healed: the US economy is almost 1% above pre-crisis levels and even so fiscal expansion continues, while the euro zone is 2.5% below .

According to the European Commission, the decision to re-apply the fiscal rules should be made based on a global assessment of the situation of the economy according to quantitative criteria, the key criterion being the level of economic activity in the EU compared to previous levels. to the crisis. With those figures in hand, it may be premature to return to normality in 2023. But that seems the most likely scenario right now.

Beyond GDP, employment also provided good news in the second quarter: the eurozone created just over a million jobs in spring, always according to Eurostat, but Spain was left out of that bonanza, with the worst figures in the Union: a Almost 1% drop in employment ratios. The unemployment rate is at 15.3%, according to the Labor Force Survey. Spain closed the second quarter with 19.5 million employed persons, 181,000 less than in the previous quarter, although the Spanish economy has already recovered one million jobs since the worst moment of the crisis. Anyway, the scars of the pandemic are still very visible.