Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the differentiation of selected macroeconomic variables characterizing the EU economies over a short period

This chapter aims to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the differentiation of selected macroeconomic variables in the European Union (EU) economies. The study examined 27 European countries that were members of the European Union at the time of the announcement of the pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. The analysis did not include the United Kingdom, which left the European Union on January 31, 2020. The following macro-indicators were analyzed and assessed: gross domestic product per capita, the unemployment rate, gross fixed capital formation per capita, exports of goods and services per capita, and imports of goods and services per capita. The research project included both a long (2006–2020) and a short (Q2 of 2020 vs. Q2 of 2019)4 period. The macro-indicators are discussed in this analysis using a dynamic approach (in time) and a spatial approach (the level of countries). The economies of the EU member states are classified in quintile groups with the lowest (five countries), low (five), average (six), high (five) and the highest (five) values of the analyzed variables. The groups have different compositions in the analysis of unemployment because the changes in unemployment rates in those countries were insignificant between Q2 of 2019 and Q2 of 2020. Short-term comparative analyses cover the second quarters of 2019 and 2020, the period of the sharpest decreases in the discussed macroeconomic aggregates. Slovakia is classified in a separate group with a 0 value on the maps due to the absence of statistics for that country (except the unemployment map). This chapter contains a cluster analysis employing Ward’s method with Euclidean distance, and a study into variations of selected macroeconomic characteristics in quarterly periods in the years 2006–2020