As 2025 draws to a close, it is time to take inventory of the European economy. Unfortunately, it is not an uplifting experience. To date, Eurostat has published numbers for gross domestic product and its components through the third quarter of 2025. If we calculate an average for those three quarters, the GDP of the EU itself has grown at 1.48% over the same three quarters in 2024. The euro zone is doing even worse: 1.35%. There is only one way to skin this cat: these are miserable numbers. A look at the EU member states tells an even more depressing story: of the 26 member states, only five, Cyprus, Poland, Malta, Bulgaria, and Croatia, reach the sound-growth threshold of 3%. An economy that cannot sustain 2% real GDP growth over time will experience a slow, gradual decline in its standard of living.
