In ordinary times, Europeans save around 12 percent of their income. But as families stayed at home and furlough schemes supported income during the pandemic, this savings rate increased sharply to almost 19 percent in 2020 and 2021. As shown in this Chart of the Week, we estimate that households in the euro area saved nearly 1 trillion euros more in those two years than they would have done if the pandemic never happened. In other words, people saved a...

Read more

The Winter 2022 Economic Forecast projects that, following a notable expansion by 5.3% in 2021, the EU economy will grow by 4.0% in 2022 and 2.8% in 2023. Growth in the euro area is also expected at 4.0% in 2022, moderating to 2.7% in 2023. The EU as a whole reached its pre-pandemic level of GDP in the third quarter of 2021 and all Member States are projected to have passed this milestone by the end of 2022. Economic growth...

Read more

Why a European Chips Act? Semiconductor chips are the essential building blocks of digital and digitised products. From smartphones and cars, through critical applications and infrastructures for healthcare, energy, communications and industrial automation, chips are central to the modern digital economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a weakness in the eco-system within both Europe and other regions in the world experiencing significant shortages of chips. EU industries manufacture many types of high-tech products, of which chips are essential parts. Europe must...

Read more

Today, the Commission proposes a comprehensive set of measures to ensure the EU's security of supply, resilience and technological leadership in semiconductor technologies and applications. The European Chips Act will bolster Europe's competitiveness, resilience and help achieve both the digital and green transition. Recent global semiconductors shortages forced factory closures in a wide range of sectors from cars to healthcare devices. In the car sector, for example, production in some Member States decreased by one third in 2021. This made...

Read more