Croatia had the third largest drop in GDP growth in the EU in Q4 2020, behind Greece and Spain only, according to new data released by the EU statistics bureau Eurostat.

According to Eurostat’s seasonally-adjusted data, Spain saw its GDP shrink 9.1 percent year-on-year in Q 2020, followed by Greece whose GDP contracted 7.9 percent.

Croatia’s GDP shrank 7.1 percent in the same period, after the country had recorded a 9.8 percent year-on-year drop in Q3 2020.

Italy rounds off the top four worst-performing economies, with a GDP decline of 6.6 percent in Q4 2020.

The smallest GDP decline across the EU was in Ireland (0.2 percent) and Luxembourg holds the distinction of being the only EU country to register GDP growth in the same period, 1.4 percent year-on-year.

Quarter-on-quarter figures show that economic activity flagged at the end of the year, when a new wave of the coronavirus pandemic hit Europe, forcing governments to reintroduce tight restrictions.

Romania, Malta, Croatia, and Greece had the highest quarter-on-quarter growth rates. Romania had 4.8 percent growth in Q4 2020 compared to Q3 2020. It was followed by Malta, with a quarter-on-quarter GDP growth of 3.8 percent. Croatia had 2.7 percent growth in the same period. Greece had the same quarterly GDP growth rate as Croatia.

On the other hand, the largest quarter-on-quarter drop was in Ireland, 5.1 percent. Austria followed with a 2.7 percent drop, followed by Italy and France who saw their GDPs shrink by 1.9 percent and 1.4 percent respectively.