Basic figures on the EU : Second quarter 2015

This short guide shows information for the EU, the euro area, the EU Member States and three EFTA countries. Until 31 December 2014, the euro area (EA-18) was composed of: Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland. Lithuania joined the euro area (EA-19) on 1 January 2015. The EU-28 includes the EA-19 countries and also: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The three EFTA countries covered are: Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. In an effort to give readers a better overview of the data available in the Eurostat database, each edition of Basic figures on the EU will introduce a set of three alternating indicators. In this edition they are ‘quality of life’, ‘meat prices’ and ‘extra-EU trade’. For the EU, the information presented in this short guide is generally based on data for the EU-28 and EA-18 aggregates (when available). However, the data for inflation is based on moving aggregates that reflect the membership of the EU and euro area over time (coded EU and EA in the graphs). Quarterly growth rates are expressed in relation to the previous quarter. Quarterly rates are generally calculated using seasonally adjusted data, although rates for the government surplus, deficit and debt are based on non seasonally adjusted data. Furthermore, annual rates of change for inflation are also based on non seasonally adjusted data