The impact of the Great Recession on the European Union countries

Although the Great Recession has been a global phenomenon affecting most developed (and emerging) economies, in the case of the European Union (EU), there are significant differences among EU individual countries and among EU groups of countries, like euro and non-euro countries regarding the depth and duration of the crisis. The paper analyses the effects of the economic and financial crisis on a set of seventeen economic and financial variables, comparing the economic performance of the EU economies before and after the onset of the crisis. The analysis confirms the hypotheses, first, of the existence of significant differences on the performance during the crisis of the EU economies, and, second, that the EU economies most affected by the crisis have been the euro countries, mainly those that join the euro after 1999. In this sense, and focusing on the Eurozone, the paper shows a rising divergence in the macroeconomic performance of euro countries, a divergence process that has been amplified during the Great Recession.