EU10 Regular Economic Report June 2008
- Global financial tensions appear to have eased somewhat since mid-March, but the external environment faced by the EU10 remainschallenging.
- This reflects continued tight liquidity in capital and creditmarkets, higher and rising inflation and commodity prices, and outlookfor weak economic growth in mature markets.
- Output is set to grow more slowly in many of the EU10 countries in 2008, with the slowdown most pronounced in Estonia and Latvia.
- Growth should remain little changed in Bulgaria and Poland this year, however, and pick up in Romania and Hungary. Some cooling down is welcome,given the imbalances in some countries with large current accountdeficits and external debt, and high and rising inflation.
- Higher prices for food and energy, together with increases in excise tax rates in some countries and buoyant domestic demand in others, haveboosted inflation further in early 2008.
- Inflation more than doubled from a year earlier in April 2008 in most countries and poses an increasing challenge.
- Buoyant revenues and spending restraint have helped improve fiscalpositions this year in the Visegrad countries, Bulgaria and Romania.
- This follows fiscal tightening in most of the region in 2007, with the largest improvements in member states under the EU excessive deficitprocedure (all Visegrad countries).
- Higher inflation led central banks to tighten monetary policy this year in most of the EU10 countries.
- Tighter credit standards by commercial banks and weaker economic activity in some countries have helped slow credit growth, as did falling housing prices in the Baltic countries.
Previous Reports
Media Coverage
Video
Presentations
EU 10 RER-Main Report(PDF), Emilia Skrok
EU 10 RER(PDF), Thomas Larson
Welcome the Older Back to Work(PDF), Leszek Kasek
Special Topic
Public Investment Management
Public investment in infrastructure is an essential part of the EU10’sconvergence strategies. EU policy directives play an important role in the process, but it is becoming increasingly important to build national practices to strengthen effective and efficient management of public infrastructure resources. For public infrastructure investments to be productive, they need to be supported by strong institutional processes for planning, appraisal and management.
Read AllEU8+2 Countries
Eight Central European countries joined the EU in 2004:
the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republicand Slovenia
Bulgariaand Romaniajoined the EU in 2007
Croatiabegan EU accession negotiations in October 2005
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