EU monthly news: June 2026
Politics
The EU has agreed to legislation that will finalize its trade agreement with the United States. The rules are a key component of the framework trade agreement with Washington reached last summer, which is intended to prevent the imposition of higher U.S. tariffs on EU products. The Commission and the Council of the EU wanted to approve the agreement quickly, in part due to concern over possible retaliation from Washington. US President Trump recently stated that the EU must bring the agreement into force by July 4 or else it will face significantly higher tariffs. The text still needs to be voted on by Members of the European Parliament at a plenary session, which is expected to take place in mid-June in Strasbourg.
The European Commission presented the European Technological Sovereignty Package, a set of measures to strengthen Europe's capacity in semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and open source. The package includes two legislative proposals - the Chips Act 2.0 and the Cloud and AI Development Act - as well as the Open Source Strategy and a Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy. Together, these measures support Europe's ambition to become an AI continent, strengthen its digital autonomy and help build a more sustainable digital future.
The European Commission has notified airlines that they are not allowed to retroactively increase the price of tickets that have already been purchased. The Commission said that the impact of the war in the Middle East and fuel price increases are not sufficient reasons for abrogating the rights of passengers. Price changes will only be allowed for new ticket sales.
Economy
In the first quarter of 2026, seasonally adjusted GDP increased by 0.2% in the EU, compared with the previous quarter. Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, seasonally adjusted GDP increased by 1.0% in the EU in the first quarter of 2026.
In the first quarter of 2026, the EU imported €627.8 billion in goods from non-EU countries and exported €640.5 billion. Compared with the previous quarter, imports increased by 1.7% and exports decreased by 0.1%. Compared with the first quarter of 2025, both imports and exports decreased, by 3.3% and 8.8%, respectively.
The EU unemployment rate was 6.0% in April 2026, also stable compared with March 2026 and with April 2025.
The EU annual inflation was 3.2% in April 2026, up from 2.8% in March. A year earlier, the rate was 2.4%. The lowest annual rates were registered in Sweden (0.5%), Denmark (1.2%) and Czechia (2.1%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Romania (9.5%) and Bulgaria (6.0%). Compared with March 2026, annual inflation fell in five Member States, remained stable in one and rose in twenty-one.
In March 2026, compared with February 2026, seasonally adjusted industrial production increased by 0.8% in the EU. In February 2026, industrial production grew by 0.2% in the EU.
Author
Erste Bank Research Team
Erste Bank
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