ECLM forecast evaluation

Policy Study

The European economy has been going through the worst crisis in the history of the European Union. During the first years of the last decade the economies worldwide were booming but a deep crisis was waiting just around the corner. In 2007 the first signs of the crisis started showing and in 2009 the crisis hit with full power.

From 2008 and until today the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) has been cooperating with The Economic Council of the Labour Movement (ECLM) in the work of producing and publishing forecasts of the economic situation in the European Union.

Because of the crisis it has been difficult to forecast the GDP growth compared to forecasts made in more “normal periods”. Several forecasts have been made both as baseline scenario and negative scenario. The baseline scenario made in 2008 shows very clearly, that the crisis kicked in with a more powerful strength than foreseen as the baseline scenario is made just around the time of the Lehman Brothers’ bankrupt. First in April 2009 the consequences of the crisis began to show its actual face. Because of the 2009-numbers, we made a small underestimation in the baseline in 2010 as the actual GDP growth was higher than expected. Our estimation for 2011 was fairly accurate and the sign of the numbers should tell us, that the crisis is about to decline in strength. The fluctuations have been larger than forecasted as the crisis came unexpected and on top of that it was very powerful.

Look at the ECLMs baseline forecasts in the years from 2008-2011.