European Union retail trade grows first 2021 half reveals how retail trade is rebounding strongly in the European Union at the start of the summer season. While the return of tourism is encouraging consumption figures to exceed their figures prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, the Community economy continues to register increases in its seasonally adjusted records of commercial activity that exceed those recorded at the end of 2020 and are reflected in Spain.

In fact, the volume of retail trade of the EU and the eurozone, which is calculated based on the figures of 2015, has again reached its historical maximum in June after the collapse suffered 2 months before due to delays in the process of vaccination and the resurgences and new variants of coronavirus, as reflected in the following graph, in which contrasts the rise of June 2021 in front of the crash of April 2020.

Specifically, the volume of retail trade has grown in June by 1.2% compared to the figures of the previous month, according to Eurostat, which highlights that this advance is very far from the rise of 4.2% recorded in May but also away from the month-on-month decline of 3.6% suffered by the sector in April. In this way, the commercial activity has replicated in the second quarter the behavior of the first, in which it contracted in January to grow during the following 2 months.

European Union retail trade grows first 2021 half

The Community statistical office highlights that, although the categories of food, beverages and tobacco and internet and online orders have fallen compared to the previous month, all commercial segments have recorded figures that exceed those of 12 months ago, especially double-digit growth in the online field and in the automotive fuels, within an increase of 5.3% in the total volume of trade in the EU compared to June 2020.

As for Spain, it is among the 11 EU members that register a volume of retail trade in June that exceeds the previous month, while other 11 community partners have worse figures than in May, Finland has closed the month flat and Republic. The Czech Republic, Greece and Cyprus have not yet sent their updated trade figures to Eurostat.

In particular, retail trade has grown by 0.5% in Spain compared to the previous month, an increase well behind the 9.4% that Ireland grows, the 4.2% of Germany and Latvia, the 2% of Lithuania or the 1.2% of average progress in the whole of the EU. On the loss side, the worst month-on-month decline is for Malta, with 3% less than in May, followed by Austria with 2.7% less and Croatia with 2.6%.

European Union retail trade grows first 2021 half

However, comparing the figures of June with the same month of 2020, the european scene is much more homogenous, given that only one of the 27, Luxembourg, you have a lower volume this year than 12 months ago, and in particular a 3.2% less, which contrasts with the strong rise of 22.7% in Bulgaria, from 15.3% in Lithuania and above 12% in Slovenia, Estonia and Romania.

In addition, 4 of the 5 major european economies grow less than the average annual progress of the EU, of 5.3%, with Spain to pick a 1.4% with respect to June of 2020, France to grow by 3.6%, Germany 4.6%, Netherlands 5.1%, while Italy is still the tendency of the economies of eastern Europe and recorded a strong increase of 9% in June compared with the same month of the previous year.

However, the results of this comparison may not be entirely representative, given that in the period of comparison, at the end of the second quarter of last year, the european economies were mired in full in the crisis of the coronavirus, with activity limited to the minimum by the most stringent measures of confinement and with its GDP falling in unison to volumes of record, that in the EU resulted in a fall of 11.7 per cent and in Spain of 22.1%.

European Union retail trade grows first 2021 half

To find a more suitable period to compare with pre-coronavirus records, it is necessary to go back to June 2019, 8 months before the outbreak of the pandemic, which allows to see how far the EU and its member countries are returning to the retail volumes they registered before the current crisis and which of the 27 are lagging behind in the commercial recovery.

This comparison between June 2019 and June 2021 shows that 21 of the 24 EU countries with data updated to June already exceed the volume of retail trade they had 2 years ago and, in cases such as Lithuania, Ireland, Estonia or Romania, the improvement in the last 24 months exceeds 20 points. Meanwhile, the remaining 3 partners, Spain, Italy and Malta, still do not recover their prepandemia records.

European Union retail trade grows first 2021 half

Specifically, as shown in the graph above, which compares Eurostat's commercial activity indices for 12 of the main European economies in June 2019 and 2021, Spain is 3.3 points below its commercial activity records before the pandemic, while Italy is 3 tenths of equal to its figures from 24 months ago.

Meanwhile, among the countries whose trade figures have already recovered from the impact of the coronavirus, stand out the 21.4 points that Ireland has improved compared to June 2019, while Germany has gained just over 10 points, the Netherlands around 11 and France just over 8 points, while the Community average improves by 7 points the activity index that showed 2 summers ago.

In the absence of Eurostat publishing the July figures of retail trade volume in the EU on 3 September, the sector arrives with good expectations to the months of high summer season, although the continuation of restrictions on tourism could continue to slow the complete recovery of state and Community trade.