BRUSSELS, 15 ()
The European Commission estimates that the Spanish economy will grow by 1.9% in 2023, standing five tenths above the winter forecast, above the 1.1% forecast for the euro area and 1% for the European Union as a whole. , while the GDP growth forecast for Spain remains at 2% for 2024.
The European Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, has highlighted that this expansion rate of 1.9% in 2023 remains “well above the EU average, thanks to the Recovery and Resistance Plan and a very strong labor market “, to which he added that during the 2021-24 period, spending financed with subsidies from the anti-crisis fund is expected to rise above 3.5% of GDP in Spain and Greece.
Brussels spring forecasts foresee a reduction in Spanish inflation to 4% for this year, four tenths below the decline that Brussels predicted in February for 2023, while the reduction forecast rises three tenths, up to 2, 7% by 2024.
This figure is also below the Community inflation forecast, which is expected to rise to 6.7% throughout the European Union by 2023 –compared to the previous forecast of 6.4%– and up to 3 .1% in 2024, also three tenths below the February forecasts.
With regard to the euro area, inflation has also been revised upwards compared to winter, up to 5.8% in 2023 and 2.8% in 2024, figures that, according to Gentiloni, will continue to “slow down”. , although it is expected that in 2024 core inflation “will continue to be almost double its historical average”.
Compared to the growth forecast in the winter forecasts for 2023, this has also risen by two tenths in both cases to 1% in the EU and 1.1% in the euro area, while the growth rate for 2024 also rises one tenth, standing at 1.7% and 1.6% for the EU and the euro area, respectively. “There will be no recession, but there will be moderate growth”, summed up the Italian commissioner
Regarding the rate of reduction of public debt ratios, the ratio between debt and GDP is expected to decrease in most EU countries, although Spain is among the six member states in which debt is predicted to exceeds 100% of GDP by the end of 2024, along with Belgium, Greece, France, Italy and Portugal.
Specifically, Brussels predicts 110.6% for 2023 and 109.1% for next year in the Spanish economy, while the eurozone average will be 90.8% and 99.9%, and the the whole of the European Union of 83.4% and 82.6%.
