Romania’s GDP, 1.6% of EU Total in 2020
Romania’s gross domestic product in 2020 was 218.2 billion euros, which puts us at 13th place among the economies of the EU, according to data published by Eurostat. In the previous year, we were just under Czechia (223,2 billion euros vs. 225,6 billion euros), which had a stronger decline and went down to 215,3 billion euros .
The GDP of the EU27 stood at around €13,400 billion at current prices. In real terms, the EU’s GDP in 2020 was 7.6% higher than its level a decade ago. However, real GDP was 5.9% lower than its level in 2019; it was the first drop in EU GDP since 2009, when GDP declined by 4.3% compared with 2008.
Share of EU GDP by member state, 2020
Source: Eurostat
The decrease in economic activity and consequently in GDP is consistent with the restrictions implemented in 2020 to slow down the spread of COVID-19. In 2020, slightly more than a quarter of the EU’s GDP was generated by Germany (25.1%), followed by France (17.2%) and Italy (12.3%), ahead of Spain (8.4%) and the Netherlands (6.0%).
At the opposite end of the scale, ten EU Member States contributed less than 1% to the EU’s total GDP: Malta (which had the lowest share of EU GDP at 0.1%), Estonia, Cyprus and Latvia (all 0.2%), Croatia, Lithuania and Slovenia (all 0.4%), Bulgaria and Luxembourg (both 0.5%), and Slovakia (0.7%).
When comparing the GDP of 2019 and 2020 in the EU Member States, Spain took the biggest hit (-10.8%), followed by Greece (-9.0%), Italy (-8.9%), Portugal (-8.4%), Malta (-8.2%), Croatia (-8.1%) and France (-7.9%). The only EU country that registered an increase in GDP in 2020 was Ireland (+5.9%, but this is a byproduct of the relocation of some multinationals’ headquarters after Brexit).
GDP in 2019 and 2020 in selected EU Member States (billion euros)
Source: Eurostat
When comparing results regarding GDP in real terms (adjusted to prices of the reference period), it is worth mentioning the concentration of poor performance in the south of the continent. The steepest decline was registred in Spain (-10.8%), followed by Greece (-9%), Italy (-8.9%), Portugal (-8.4%), Malta (-8.2%), Croatia (-8.1%) and France (-7.9%). According to latest data published by Romanian Institute for Statistics, Romania performed slightly better than initially calculated (-3.7% semifinal result, instead of -3.9% preliminary result).
