Europe Business

Economy and resources

Europe’s agriculture is highly developed, but there is great variation between different countries and regions. Agriculture accounts for about ten percent of employment. About 30 percent of the continent’s area is cultivable. Most important in Northern Europe is the production of vegetables, meat and milk, in Central and Eastern Europe cereals and in Southern Europe fruits, vegetables and wine. According to Abbreviationfinder, the EU countries have more than half of the world’s wine production. Animal husbandry is of great importance in all European countries, but most in Northern and Western Europe.

Forestry is most important in Russia, Scandinavia and Finland.

The main players in fisheries are Russia, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and the United Kingdom. Fish farming has become a major industry in Norway and Scotland.

European countries have consistently high energy consumption. In the industrialization of Europe, coal has been, and still is, an important source of electric power generation, but many coalfields are being emptied. The largest deposits of lignite are in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, and the main coal deposits are in Ruhr and Saar in Germany, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain and Ukraine. Countries with a lot of iron ore are Russia, France, Ukraine, Sweden and Spain.

Most of the hydropower has the Nordic countries, alpine countries and Russia. The largest share of nuclear power is France, Lithuania and Slovakia.

There are rich deposits of oil and natural gas in particular Russia and the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea, with Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Russia as major players. The three largest oil-producing countries in Europe (Russia, Norway and the UK) account for 96 percent of the continent’s total production. Seven countries account for the remaining four percent: Denmark, Italy, Romania, Ukraine, Germany, Turkey and the Netherlands. In the list of the 30 countries in the world with the largest oil reserves, there are three European countries: Russia no. 8, Norway no. 21 and UK no. 30. The five largest European gas producers are Russia, Norway, the Netherlands, the UK and Ukraine.. Russia has the world’s largest reserves of gas, while Norway has the seventh largest. Many European countries rely on oil and gas imports. Germany, Italy and France import the most.

The heavy industry has long played an important role with the production of iron and steel, and with Western European countries and Russia as major players, but in recent times the iron and steel industry has been more important in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe. The coal and steel union, which was entered into between France and West Germany in 1950, formed the basis for the emergence of the European Union (EU), which today encompasses 28 European countries (not Norway). According to Countryaah, there are 28 countries in the European Union.

In the EU area, industry accounts for approximately one third of value creation and employment in the private sector. In recent years, many large Western European industrial companies have increasingly moved production to Asia, Southern and Eastern Europe. Large parts of the EU area have in recent years had unemployment of more than ten percent. Europe accounts for close to 40 percent of world trade.

In 2016, Europe had 28.5 percent of the world’s gross domestic product. Germany has the world’s largest national economy. Monaco is the richest country in Europe and the world by gross domestic product per capita. Europe’s poorest country is Moldova.

Europe’s economy is the world’s largest, but with wide variations. The richest countries are in the west, and several of the countries of the former Eastern bloc are poor and still struggling with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

The euro zone experienced its first recession in 2008. It gave rise to several expressions, among other things, which led to an unemployment rate of 10.3 percent in April 2012. For the 15-24 year age group, the same month was 22.4 per cent. A severe debt crisis developed especially in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. Especially for Greece, Europe’s richest countries, with Germany at the forefront, put in place economic measures. Several other European countries, including Italy, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, also experienced economic setbacks. In November 2013, the European Central Bank reduced its key policy rate(loan rates to banks) from 0.5 to 0.25 percent and in March 2016 to 0.0 percent. The primary objective was for euro area countries to be able to sell their goods a little cheaper abroad, thus strengthening competitiveness against Asian and American industries.