EU & G7 Nations: Economic Indicators Since 2020

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This EU and G7 economic dashboard is a personal project, but the skill behind it is exactly what I do professionally: turning raw, scattered data into clear, interactive reporting a team can actually trust, for organizations up to $800M.

Analytical Insights

Business Investment

Business investment shows the sharpest contraction of any metric in the dataset. Post-2020 values fell relative to pre-2020 baselines across most countries; the cluster compresses into a narrow band, with few countries moving clearly upward.

Among EU members, Lithuania, Estonia, and Slovakia lead. Italy outperforms the other G7 nations on this metric, sitting above the EU average post-2020. The US posts the lowest business investment of any G7 member post-2020, sitting below the EU average, a notable position for the largest economy in the dataset. The UK also sits below average, consistent with the disruption its EU departure introduced into trade and investment flows.

Key Conclusion: Business investment is the metric where the post-2020 period has been most broadly damaging. The Eastern European EU members that led pre-2020 have held their positions better than the larger Western economies.

GDP

GDP produces the most dramatic outliers in the dataset. Ireland and Malta sit far above every other country post-2020, reflecting multinational corporate tax base effects rather than genuine domestic output growth. Both countries attract significant corporate profit-shifting due to favorable tax structures, which inflates their GDP figures relative to actual domestic economic activity.

Beyond those two, Lithuania, Poland, and Estonia lead EU performers on GDP. Among G7 nations, Japan and Italy lag at the bottom. Germany and the UK both cluster near the center, with modest pre-2020 baselines and modest post-2020 growth relative to peers.

Key Conclusion: Ireland and Malta are not comparable to other EU members on GDP; their figures reflect corporate tax positioning, not economic output. Reading the GDP chart requires mentally setting those two aside. The more meaningful comparison is among the remaining EU members, where the Eastern European economies consistently lead.

CPI

CPI shows the UK as a consistent high-inflation outlier across both periods. Its pre-2020 CPI was already above the EU average, and post-2020 it extended further, reaching the highest inflation level of any country in the dataset. This pattern reflects structural inflation pressures that pre-dated 2020 and were amplified by the supply chain disruptions and trade friction that followed the UK's EU departure.

Most EU members cluster between 110 and 115 post-2020. Germany sits on the lower end of that range despite its economic scale, showing lower inflation than the UK despite similar demand levels.

Key Conclusion: The UK's CPI trajectory is the clearest post-Brexit signal in the dataset. It was already the highest-inflation country before 2020 and extended that lead after departure. No other country in the dataset shows a comparable pattern of sustained CPI divergence from its peer group.

Consumer Spending

Consumer spending shows Eastern European and Nordic countries outperforming on both axes. Bulgaria leads post-2020. Spain and Slovenia also track above the EU average. The UK and Germany both sit below the EU average post-2020, consistent with their pattern across most metrics in the dataset.

Key Conclusion: Consumer spending and business investment tell the same story about Germany and the UK: both economies are performing below what their size would suggest. Germany's position is particularly notable given its historical role as the EU's largest economy and export engine.

Wages

Wages show G7 countries growing faster than EU members as a group post-2020, with Japan, Canada, the UK, and the US all posting higher growth relative to their pre-2020 baselines than most EU economies. Finland is the clear EU exception, with post-2020 wages notably above the EU average. Lithuania sits at the bottom of the entire dataset on both axes.

Key Conclusion: The G7 wage advantage post-2020 partly reflects recovery dynamics, since larger service economies with greater COVID-era wage compression saw stronger rebound. The EU's lower aggregate wage growth is distributed unevenly: Nordic members track closer to G7 levels while Southern and Eastern members lag.

Cross-Metric Pattern

Across GDP, business investment, and consumer spending, Germany and the UK follow the same pattern: near or below average on both the pre-2020 baseline and post-2020 performance. Two of the largest economies in the combined dataset are consistently among the weaker performers on the metrics covered.

Spain, Belgium, and Poland consistently perform above expectations across multiple metrics in the post-2020 period. Spain's consumer spending and Poland's GDP trajectories are among the stronger stories in the EU data.

Project Details

Project Motivation

This started as a question about one country and became a question about a period. Two events in 2020 created a shared dividing line across developed economies: the COVID-19 pandemic and the UK's formal exit from the European Union. Both disrupted trade, investment, and consumer behavior in ways that showed up differently depending on a country's economic structure, trade exposure, and policy response.

Most post-Brexit analysis looks at one or two metrics and compares the UK to either EU members or G7 peers, rarely both at once. Applying the pre/post 2020 lens across the full EU membership and G7 nations in a single dataset makes it possible to see how different economic models absorbed the same period, and where the UK's position relative to both groups shifted measurably.

Data Preparation

Economic data was gathered from three sources, Eurostat, the World Bank, and the OECD, using Google Gemini AI to access and consolidate the relevant indicators across all country-metric combinations. Each source covers different aspects of the economic picture: Eurostat for EU-specific indicators, the World Bank for cross-country GDP and development metrics, and the OECD for wages and business investment.

The data was organized into a single Excel workbook, restructured for Tableau import with a consistent schema: one row per country-quarter-metric observation. All values were indexed to a pre/post 2020 baseline to make cross-country comparison meaningful regardless of the absolute size of each economy. A calculated field in Tableau designates each observation as pre-Brexit (before 2020-01-01) or post-Brexit (on or after 2020-01-01), which drives the X and Y axis positioning in the scatter plot view.

Dashboard Features

Two views in one dashboard, both filterable by country group (All, EU, G7) and individual country.

The Economic Figures scatter plot places each country's pre-2020 performance on the X-axis and post-2020 on the Y-axis. Countries above the diagonal line improved relative to the baseline; countries below it fell back. Switching between Business Investment, Consumer Spending, CPI, GDP, and Wages in the metric selector repositions every data point in real time. Reference lines mark the pre and post-2020 averages, so the above/below-average position of each country is visible at a glance. EU countries plot in blue, G7 in red, and the UK appears as a distinct reference point across both groups.

The CPI & Wages view shows both metrics as horizontal bars for every country in the dataset simultaneously. The side-by-side layout makes it possible to see which countries have the largest gap between wage growth and price level increases, and where that gap is narrowest.

Skills Enhanced

Multi-source data consolidation using Google Gemini AI to gather quarterly economic indicators from Eurostat, the World Bank, and the OECD across 34 countries and 5 metrics, a scope that would have required substantial manual extraction without AI assistance.

Pre/post period indexing design, calculating a baseline-indexed value for each country-metric combination that enables cross-country comparison regardless of absolute GDP or CPI levels. Countries of vastly different economic sizes become directly comparable on the same axis.

Diverging scatter plot design using Tableau's dual-axis layout, with pre-2020 averages on X and post-2020 on Y, and a diagonal reference line as the benchmark. Countries position themselves relative to whether they improved or declined across the study period.

Calculated fields for country group membership (EU, G7, UK), metric selection via parameter, and pre/post 2020 period designation, all driving a single dual-view dashboard with consistent behavior across both chart types.

Frequently Asked Questions

How did Brexit affect UK economic indicators?

The UK sits below the EU average on business investment and below most G7 peers on wages in this dataset. On CPI, it is the highest-inflation country in the full dataset, a position it held before 2020 and extended further after EU departure. The UK's post-2020 pattern across GDP, business investment, and consumer spending places it consistently near or below the combined EU/G7 average, a trajectory that matches neither its pre-Brexit EU peers nor its G7 peers on most metrics covered.

Why do Ireland and Malta show such high GDP in the dataset?

Both countries attract significant multinational corporate profit-shifting due to favorable corporate tax structures. Their GDP figures include profits booked in-country by large multinationals, which inflates the headline GDP index relative to actual domestic economic activity. Both sit far above every other country in the dataset on post-2020 GDP. The more meaningful EU comparison on GDP is among the remaining 25 member states.

Which EU countries have the strongest post-2020 economic performance?

It varies by metric. On business investment, Lithuania, Estonia, and Slovakia lead. On GDP (excluding Ireland and Malta), Lithuania, Poland, and Estonia are top EU performers. On consumer spending, Bulgaria leads post-2020 followed by Spain and Slovenia. Finland is the outlier on wages, above the EU average and closer to G7 levels. Spain, Belgium, and Poland appear consistently above average across multiple metrics.

How does Germany compare to other EU countries?

Germany sits near or below average across GDP, business investment, and consumer spending in this dataset, a consistent pattern across the metrics covered. Its post-2020 performance is not markedly different from its pre-2020 baseline, but both are below the EU average in most metrics. On CPI, Germany sits on the lower end of the EU range, which is notable given its economic scale.

Why use 2020 as the dividing line?

2020 is when two concurrent disruptions hit developed economies simultaneously: the COVID-19 pandemic and the UK's formal EU departure (January 2020). Using it as the dividing line creates a clean pre/post comparison that captures both effects. It's not a perfect natural experiment, since the two events can't be isolated from each other, but it makes the period-over-period comparison consistent across all countries and metrics.

Which G7 nations have the strongest economic performance since 2020?

Among the G7 nations in this dataset, Canada and the US post the highest wage growth post-2020. Italy outperforms the other G7 nations on business investment, the one metric where it leads. Japan and Italy lag on GDP. The UK is the consistent underperformer across business investment, consumer spending, and GDP relative to G7 peers. Germany sits near the G7 average on most metrics but below it on consumer spending and business investment. G7 nations as a group show higher wage growth than the EU average, but Eastern EU members lead on business investment.

Where does the economic data come from?

Three sources: Eurostat (the EU's statistical office, primarily for EU member state data), the World Bank, and the OECD. Data was gathered using Google Gemini AI to consolidate the relevant indicators across all country-metric combinations. All values are indexed to a pre/post 2020 baseline rather than reported in absolute terms. Data reflects the most recent available figures at time of publication (May 2026).

What are the G7 nations, and how do they compare to EU countries economically?

The G7 nations are the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, and Italy. Two G7 nations, Germany and France, are also EU members. The UK was an EU member until January 2020 and is plotted in this dashboard as a separate reference point against both groups. Post-2020, G7 nations show higher wage growth on average than the EU, but Eastern EU member states lead on business investment. The dashboard covers 34 countries total: all 27 EU member states plus the 7 G7 nations, with Germany and France plotted in both groups.

Built by Clair Wyant, a data architecture consultant & data visualization consultant specializing in dashboards and reporting systems built with Tableau and Looker Studio.