Thousands of demonstrators gathered to protest against the government. Around a third of households in the Czech Republic have problems covering their monthly expenses.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The Eastern European member states have long been the economic tractors of the European Union. And for the current year, the Eastern Europe development bank EBRD is even improving the economic forecast for individual countries. On the other hand, the crisis is likely to hit Eastern Europe much more severely in the coming year, according to the new economic forecast.
An important risk: “An economic slowdown in Germany that would hit Eastern Europe hard,” said EBRD chief economist Beata Javorcik to Handelsblatt. A slide into recession or production stops in Germany due to a lack of gas would mean collapsing exports and a further surge in inflation for the East.
A significant “economic slowdown has already begun,” Javorcik said. But “the high consumer spending and the large exports in the first half of the year surprised us”. The EBRD raised its growth forecast for 2022 for Eastern Europe by 0.5 percentage points to 3.7 percent. In the first half of the year, the economies of the Eastern European EU countries grew by 5.9 percent.
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