Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia continued to grow faster in the second quarter than the EU average, although they stalled due to the war in Ukraine. In Romania, gross domestic product (gdp) grew by 2.1% compared to the first quarter of 2022, when it grew by more than 5%, according to a first estimate published Wednesday by the Institute of Statistics and Eurostat.

Romania and its 19 million inhabitants are attracting investors, with a rise of nearly 21% in new business registrations from one quarter to the next, far ahead of Portugal (+7.7%) and Slovakia (+6.7%), according to statistics published Wednesday by the European Commission. In neighbouring Hungary, GDP rose by 1.1%, compared with 2.1% in the first three months.

According to the corrected data of the Statistical Office (KSH). While in the second quarter, bankruptcy filings increased by 2.2% in the EU, compared to the first quarter of 2022, Hungary and its 9.8 million inhabitants show a decrease of almost 12%.

According to the National Institute of Statistics, the Bulgarian territory and its 6.5 million inhabitants recorded a growth of 1.1%, a figure unchanged quarter-on-quarter, mainly thanks to household consumption and exports. The same trend was seen in Slovenia, where GDP grew by a modest 0.9% between April and June, marking the time after exceptional growth in late 2021, according to official estimates released on Tuesday.

Eastern European countries are heavily impacted by inflation, starting with Bulgaria, at 17.3% in July compared to the same period last year, a record since 1998. For the European Union (EU) as a whole, economic growth was 0.6% in the second quarter compared to the previous one, at the same level as in the first three months of the year, thus marking a stabilization of activity.