Baltics lead EU economic growth -- Eurostat

BRUSSELS -- In the latest report from Eurostat, the EU's official statistics agency, the three Baltic states lead the EU in terms of economic growth.

Estonia boasted by far the largest year-on-year growth rate in the second quarter, at a staggering 8.4%. Lithuania's was the second highest at 5.9%, closely followed by Latvia at 5.7%. The only other country with a year-on-year growth rate of more than 5% was Sweden, at 5.3%.

Latvia and Estonia also saw the highest quarterly growth rates, coming in at 2.2% and 1.8%, respectively.

The report stands in sharp contrast to the situation a few years ago, when the Baltics -- Latvia and Lithuania in particular -- suffered from the EU's largest contraction of GDP.

The country with the worst year-on-year growth rate, meanwhile, was Portugal at -0.9%, followed by Romania at +0.3%.

A full version of the eurostat report can be found here.