{"id":656449,"date":"2026-08-25T23:08:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/656449\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T23:08:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:08:28","slug":"eu-imports-of-goods-outpace-exports-in-q2-2026-news-articles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/656449\/","title":{"rendered":"EU imports of goods outpace exports in Q2 2026 – News articles"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the second quarter of 2026, the EU<\/a> recorded a trade deficit of \u20ac21.8 billion, as goods imported<\/a> from non-EU countries<\/a> (\u20ac701.8 billion) exceeded exports <\/a>(\u20ac680.0 billion). This is the first trade deficit registered since the second quarter of 2023, the last of a series of deficits fuelled by soaring energy costs observed between late 2021 and mid-2023.<\/p>\n

The deficit in the trade balance was primarily due to an increase in the deficit on energy products (from -\u20ac71.3 billion in Q1 2026 to -\u20ac101.1 billion in Q2 2026), raw materials (from -\u20ac7.9 billion to -\u20ac9.4 billion) and other manufactured goods (from -\u20ac8.3 billion to -\u20ac9.1 billion). Additionally, there was a reduction in the surplus of machinery and vehicles (from \u20ac24.9 billion in Q1 2026 to \u20ac23.2 billion) and other goods (from \u20ac11.6 billion to \u20ac9.1 billion).\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the other hand, there were surplus increases for chemicals (from \u20ac47.1 billion to \u20ac54.0 billion) and food and drinks (from \u20ac10.7 billion to \u20ac11.5 billion).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"EU<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Source dataset: ext_st_eu27_2020sitc<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Overall, exports increased by 5.4% (+\u20ac34.9 billion) and imports by 9.9% (+\u20ac63.4 billion) compared with the previous quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Exports and imports had been declining since the second quarter of 2025, a trend that halted in the first quarter of 2026. Those declines had been partly attributed to tariff tensions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"EU<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Source dataset: ext_st_eu27_2020sitc<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the second quarter of 2026, the EU recorded a trade deficit of \u20ac21.8 billion, as goods imported…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,5720,179,18,55504,19,10850,17],"class_list":["post-656449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-data-driven-news","tag-economy","tag-eire","tag-ext","tag-ie","tag-international-trade","tag-ireland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117158669286114866","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}