Press release No. 249 of 3 July 2020
WIESBADEN – In the European Union (EU), the economic sentiment indicator rose by 8.1 points to 74.8 points in June 2020 from the previous month. As the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports at the beginning of Germany’s Council Presidency, the indicator dropped by 30.8 to 63.8 points in April 2020 in the course of the corona crisis, which was the lowest level since such data were first collected in 1985. After a first easing of restrictions in May, the index was slightly up by 2.9 to 66.7 points. The economic sentiment indicator is compiled on behalf of the EU Commission by a EU-wide survey and scaled to a long-term mean of 100. Values above 100 indicate above-average economic sentiment and vice versa.
The composite indicator is made up of five confidence indicators with different weights. The sectors covered are industry (weight 40%), services (30%), consumers (20%), retail trade (5%) and construction (5%). All over the EU, the confidence indicator dropped dramatically in all five sectors in April 2020. The recovery of June is based above all on a much higher confidence of industry, retail trade and services.
In Germany, the economic sentiment indicator rose by 6.6 to 81.9 points in June 2020 after dropping by nearly 20 points in April and recovering slightly in May. Thus the indicator still remains far below the level measured before the pandemic. In 2019 it had always been between 98 and 108 points.
Overall, the economic climate improved in 25 of the 27 EU countries in June 2020. Increases of more than 10 points were recorded by Denmark and Slovakia (+12.6 points each), by Portugal (+11.1) and Poland (+10.7). Spain and Italy, which had lately been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, both recorded an increase of 8.2 points. In the United Kingdom, which left the EU at the beginning of 2020 and has a large number of COVID-19 cases, the index rose from 61.7 to 65.2 points. Economic sentiment was slightly down only in Greece (-0.9 points) and Malta (-0.1 points).
Methodological notes
The economic sentiment indicator is published by the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) of the European Commission, which regularly commissions harmonised surveys in all Member States for this purpose. Roughly 135,000 businesses and 32,000 consumers in all of the EU are asked about their expectations and assessments each month. As circumstances were more difficult due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the reliability and comparability of the data are slightly limited.
The webpage www.destatis.de/eu2020 specifically set up will provide all information on the German EU Council Presidency in the field of statistics. All important documents of the meetings of the Council Working Party on Statistics will be available there. In addition, the page gives an overview of the priorities of the German EU Council Presidency in the field of statistics and provides information on conferences and events planned during the German EU Council Presidency.
For further EU statistics, please go to "Focus on Europe".
