The eurozone economy outpaced expectations at the start of the year, thanks in part to exporters rushing out orders to get ahead of U.S. tariffs.
Gross domestic product, the value of goods and services produced by an economy, grew 0.4 percent in the first quarter, Eurostat reported on Wednesday, well ahead of analysts’ forecasts of 0.2 percent growth.
GDP grew faster in the eurozone than in the European Union as a whole, which registered 0.3 percent quarter-on-quarter growth. It’s unusual because EU-wide growth — buoyed by Eastern European economies that are catching up with the more developed West — generally tends to outpace the eurozone. That wasn’t the case this quarter, with non-eurozone Sweden stagnating and Hungary contracting by 0.2 percent.
Spain was by far the top performing major economy in the eurozone, with growth of 0.6 percent. Italy notched 0.3 percent, but Germany and France, the region’s two largest economies, continued to lag, with 0.2 and 0.1 percent respectively.
The data covers the period until March 31, and so predates the direct effects of the U.S. administration’s April 2 tariff package. Analysts had expected trade-heavy economies to have received a short-term boost from exporters increasing shipments ahead of the tariffs, which had been a major part of President Donald Trump’s election campaign last year.
The post Eurozone economy grows faster than expected in rush to get ahead of Trump tariffs appeared first on Politico.
