Macroeconomic impacts of the Covid-19 crisis on selected CEE countries

The outbreak of pandemic COVID-19 across the globe with more than three million dead people has completely disrupted the, social, economic and financial structures of the world. The rapid spread of COVID-19 pandemic in early March 2020 interrupted the growth momentum, which was present in most of the Eastern European countries. Many countries have closed their borders, ordered businesses to close, instructed their populations to self-quarantine, and closed schools. In addition, stock markets around the world have fallen and tax revenue sources have collapsed. Because of the medical crisis, governments across the globe implemented monetary, fiscal and balance of payments measures to curb with the severe economic downturn. Today, one and a half year after the first case was registered in China, even with high uncertainty about the path of the pandemic, a way out of this health and economic crisis is increasingly visible. In this paper, we prepare macroeconomic overview of the COVID – 19 impact on the macroeconomic developments with comparative analysis of the Eastern European countries. Unfortunately, many of these countries are among the worst performers with very high number of deaths per million people. We found serious impact of COVID-19 to the economies in this group of countries with higher magnitude than the global financial crisis of 2007-2009. The impact is different, attacking both supply and demand side of the economy and certain sectors has been more affected, especially micro, small, and medium enterprises. We found that countries, which rely more on tourism sector, suffered more than other countries