Regional Economic Outlook

Regional Economic Outlook for Europe, April 2022

The Russian invasion of Ukraine created a humanitarian catastrophe. In two months since the invasion, about 5 million people, mostly women and children, have fled Ukraine, and thousands have been wounded or killed.

The war will also have severe economic consequences for Europe, having struck when the recovery from the pandemic was still incomplete. Large increases in commodity prices and compounded supply-side disruptions will further fuel inflation and cut into households’ incomes and firms’ profits. GDP growth for 2022 has thus been marked down by no less than 1 percentage point with respect to the January 2022 World Economic Outlook Update forecasts in most countries, with far larger output contraction anticipated in Russia and especially in Ukraine. Inflation is projected to hit a multi-decade high in many countries. And new risks loom from escalating fighting and disruptions to critical energy flows.

For Europe’s policymakers the main challenges are clear: caring for the refugees; helping vulnerable households and firms cope with higher spending on energy; beefing up energy security; and, in concert with social partners, ensuring that wage and price expectations remain well anchored. The war and its aftermath will also add to the structural challenges facing post-pandemic Europe. In Ukraine, social and economic infrastructure destroyed by the war will need to be rebuilt, which will require large financing flows from donors.