Western CESEE in the Ascendant

The outlook for GDP growth in the Central, East and Southeast Europe (CESEE) region is further diverging: we expect a gradual acceleration of GDP growth for most new EU member countries starting this year. For 2015 growth is expected to increase to 3 percent on average. The recovery comes a year earlier than expected mainly based on favourable developments in the euro area. In the Western Balkans growth prospects will also improve over the whole forecast period 2015-2017, though a bit less dynamically. However, 2015 growth performance in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine will be dismal and partly worse than expected; the medium-term outlook in these countries is also fairly uncertain with considerable downward risks.