The four biggest southern European economies have outgrown Germany by about 5 per cent since 2017, underlining the region’s two-speed recovery from recent shocks, according to research.
Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece have collectively added more than €200bn of gross domestic product — more than the entire Portuguese economy — in price-adjusted terms over the past six years, while Germany’s GDP has expanded by only €85bn, according to an analysis conducted by the Capital Economics consultancy for the Financial Times.
Germany’s economy has barely grown since the coronavirus pandemic struck in 2020 after a sharp slowdown in its vast manufacturing sector was exacerbated by a rise in energy prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.