European Union: Economy grew solid 2.6% in Q4

The EU economy grew by 2.6% over the year to Q4 2017. This is slightly higher than the 2.5% annual growth in the US economy over the same period. The country with the highest GDP growth rate is Romania (+7%), followed by Latvia and Hungary (both +4.8%). However, the UK (+1.5%) and Italy (+1.6%) are heavily underperforming. In fact, the annual growth rate in the Brexit-torn UK fell significantly each quarter throughout 2017.