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Europe > Ukraine

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Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Sweden: 2025 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Sweden
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
Real GDP growth is expected to strengthen further in 2025 after a moderate recovery in 2024. Supportive policies and recovering real incomes will boost private domestic demand as inflation has been successfully brought under control. Real GDP growth is projected to rise to 1.9 percent in 2025. However, the external environment is turning less supportive, amid ongoing geo-economic fragmentation, while slower productivity growth and an aging population are dampening potential growth.
Keywords:
FSAP participation; consultation cycle; exchange arrangement; mandatory FSAP; government inquiry; Inflation; Housing prices; Macroprudential policy; Financial sector stability; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Ukraine: Seventh Review Under the Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility, Requests for Modification of a Performance Criterion, Rephasing of Access, and Financing Assurances Review-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Alternate Executive Director for Ukraine
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This paper presents Seventh Review under the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), Requests for Modification of a Performance Criterion, Rephasing of Access, and Financing Assurances Review. Ukraine’s economy remains resilient, and performance remains strong under the EFF despite challenging conditions. The authorities met all end-December and continuous quantitative performance criteria, the prior action for this review, and the majority of structural benchmarks. Sustained reform momentum, progress at domestic revenue mobilization, as well as full and timely disbursement of external support during the program period, is necessary to safeguard macroeconomic stability, restore fiscal and debt sustainability, and improve governance. While the financial sector remains stable, vigilance is needed given heightened risks. Institutional weaknesses in the security markets regulator need to be tackled. Looking ahead, improving Ukraine’s capital markets infrastructure will be one of the key steps to attracting foreign capital for reconstruction.
Keywords:
merchandise trade deficit; EU directive; administrative court; preliminary data; inflation expectation; Budget planning and preparation; Inflation; Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Thailand: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
This Selected Issues paper explores the scope of recalibration to deal with Thailand’s debt. Thailand’s debt ceiling plays a central role in safeguarding fiscal prudence. Fiscal framework provides necessary flexibility to respond to shocks, but at the cost of weakened expenditure control. This paper assesses Thailand’s debt ceiling and discusses policy implications. The analysis suggests that Thailand’s debt limit ranges between 80-110 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The analysis shows that growth-maximizing debt levels for Thailand would range between 31 to 77 percent of GDP. Overall, the analyses indicate that the debt limit for Thailand would depend importantly on outcomes for growth, interest rate and capacity for fiscal adjustment. The results show that Thailand’s current debt ceiling is broadly consistent with the debt limit and the safety margin. However, a larger safety margin is required if contingent liabilities and additional spending needs are considered. Increasing frequency of shocks and the need for potentially larger counter-cyclical fiscal policies would further reduce the required debt ceiling.
Keywords:
fan chart; household debt; Thailand's debt ceiling; public debt debt ceiling; estimates of debt limits; Debt limits; Consumer credit; Loans; Consumer loans; Global; Eastern Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Czech Republic: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues paper discusses perspectives on the Czech Republic’s structural productivity slowdown. The Czech economy has underperformed European peers in the post-pandemic period and economic convergence has come to a halt. This outcome is often attributed to the country’s links to specific slow growing trading partners and to its energy-intensive economic structure. A decline in productivity, along with a slower increase in the labor force has been a crucial factor. The paper focuses specifically on the challenge posed by declining productivity, uncovering multifaceted factors and dynamics at play. Empirical analysis suggests that further R&D investment could reduce gaps with the total factor productivity frontier, sector-specific bottlenecks should be addressed, and productivity-enhancing labor reallocation could be better supported by more targeted policies. Though structural transformation may be inevitable, it does not need to adversely affect productivity as observed in recent years. The Czech Republic may evolve towards a more mature, diversified economy with certain services playing an increasingly significant role.
Keywords:
macro News; macroeconomics news; ECB monetary policy surprise; EU TFP frontier; inflation expectation; Automobile industry; Total factor productivity; Productivity; Asset prices; Global; Europe; Eastern Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Designing Expenditure Policy Conditionality in IMF-Supported Programs
Emine Hanedar
and
Zsuzsa Munkacsi
This gap-filling paper provides granular advice on how to design quantitative and structural conditionality of IMF-supported programs in six expenditure policy areas: social assistance, energy subsidies, pension spending, health spending, education spending, and wage bill management. Such granular advice is based on a stocktaking exercise: an analysis of 105 programs approved between 2002 and July 2021 containing a ca. 1400 conditions. Conditions are key to identify outcomes or actions seen as critical for program success or monitoring, and so are essential for financial support countries can receive from the Fund.
Keywords:
IMF-supported programs; conditionality; expenditure policy; social assistance; energy subsidies; pension spending; health spending; education spending; wage bill management; policy conditionality; policy area; IMF working papers; reform plan; E. public health spending; Health care spending; Caribbean; North Africa; Middle East; East Africa; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Competitiveness and Productivity in the Baltics: Common Shocks, Different Implications
Saioa Armendariz
,
Carlos de Resende
,
Alice Fan
,
Gianluigi Ferrucci
,
Bingjie Hu
,
Sadhna Naik
, and
Can Ugur
This paper examines competitiveness and productivity in the Baltics. Focusing on recent developments, it asks why Russia’s war in Ukraine led to a prolonged recession and strong decline in competitiveness in Estonia, while Latvia and Lithuania shielded their economies more effectively. The paper starts by documenting a deterioration in export performance across the region. Using a constant share decomposition, it finds that, unlike in Latvia and Lithuania, Estonia’s declining export share has been mainly linked to a reduction in the ‘intensive margin’—a sign of weakening external competitiveness and declining relative productivity. Multivariate filtering techniques and estimates of the real effective exchange rates based on historical productivity trends, consistent with Balassa-Samuelson, confirm that differences in long-term total factor productivity growth have affected external competitiveness. While Estonia’s post-GFC slowdown in productivity growth and real exchange rate appreciation have eroded its competitive edge, Latvia and Lithuania have shown greater resilience, aided by more balanced real effective exchange rates and, for Lithuania, stronger corporate balance sheets. A micro-econometric analysis further reveals that resource misallocation, particularly in the services sector, has been a key driver of declining productivity in the region. These findings underscore the need for targeted reforms to improve allocative efficiency, boost productivity, and restore competitiveness in the Baltic region.
Keywords:
Export shares; Competitiveness; Productivity; Baltics; export share; productivity in the Baltic; resource misallocation; productivity trend; TFP dynamics; TFP deceleration; Total factor productivity; Real effective exchange rates; Real exchange rates; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Argentina: Ex-post Evaluation of Exceptional Access under the 2022 Extended Fund Facility Arrangement-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Argentina
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This paper analyzes Argentina’s Ex-post Evaluation of Exceptional Access under the 2022 Extended Fund Facility (EFF) Arrangement. The 2022 EFF came about in extremely difficult circumstances. Argentina was unable to regain external viability under the 2018 Stand-By Arrangement and faced large and concentrated repurchase obligations to the IMF. The combination of a gradualist reform strategy, large adverse shocks, and progressively weaker implementation resulted in outcomes substantially worse than in the baseline by end-2023. The program got off to a difficult start, with the surge in global commodity prices due to Russia’s war in Ukraine feeding inflation expectations and creating additional fiscal spending needs that were met through direct and indirect monetization, further fueling inflation. A major course correction subsequently undertaken by the Milei government—notably a sharp fiscal consolidation, an upfront devaluation, and an end to monetary financing of the budget helped Argentina avert a full-blown crisis and make important strides toward macroeconomic stabilization. Overall, the 2022 EFF did not achieve its original macroeconomic objectives, but it was successful in easing the burden of Argentina’s financial obligations to the IMF by rescheduling repayments over 2026–2034, and may have helped Argentina avoid even worse outcomes in 2022–2023.
Keywords:
program ownership; IMF view; disinflation process; Policy strategy; lending decision; risk tolerance; Fiscal consolidation; International reserves; Inflation; Reserves accumulation; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Shocked: Electricity Price Volatility Spillovers in Europe
Serhan Cevik
and
Yueshu Zhao
European electricity markets are in the midst of unprecedented changes—caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the rise of renewable sources of energy. Using high-frequency data, this paper investigates volatility spillovers across 24 countries in the European Union (EU) during the period 2014–2024 to provide a better understanding of the transmission of risks in an international context. We develop both a static and a dynamic assessment of spillover effects and directional decomposition between individual countries. Our main findings show that about 73 percent of the forecast error variation is explained by cross-variance shares, which means only 27 percent can be attributed to shocks within each country. In other words, cross-border volatility spillovers dominate the behavior in national electricity markets in Europe—and this effect has grown over time. We also implement an augmented gravity model of bilateral volatility spillovers across power markets in the EU. Altogether, these results provide important insights to policymakers and regulators with regards to greater integration of electricity markets and infrastructure improvements that would also help with the transition to low-carbon sources of power generation and strengthen energy security in Europe.
Keywords:
Electricity prices; Volatility; Spillovers; Gravity model; Renewable energy; Electricity market reform; Europe; volatility spillover; spillover effect; markets in the EU; electricity market; Electricity; Gravity models
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Ukraine: Sixth Review Under the Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility, Requests for Modification of a Performance Criterion, and Financing Assurances Review-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Ukraine
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This paper presents Ukraine’s Sixth Review under the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), Requests for Modification of a Performance Criterion, and Financing Assurances Review. Ukraine’s economy remains resilient, and performance remains strong under the EFF despite challenging conditions. The authorities met all end-September quantitative performance criteria and structural benchmarks. Economic growth in 2024 has been upgraded given better than expected resilience to the energy shocks. However, a slowdown is expected in 2025 due to an increasingly tight labor market, the impact of Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and continued uncertainty about the war. The financial sector remains stable, but vigilance is needed given heightened risks. Progress on strengthening bank resolution and risk-based supervision, stress-testing frameworks and contingency planning should be sustained. Sustained reform momentum, progress at domestic revenue mobilization, and timely disbursement of external support are necessary to safeguard macroeconomic stability, restore fiscal and debt sustainability, and improve governance.
Keywords:
core inflation basket; Ukrenergo's government; national bank of Ukraine; supervisory board; inflation expectation; Budget planning and preparation; Inflation; International reserves; Debt sustainability; Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Republic of Moldova: Sixth Reviews Under the Extended Credit Facility and Extended Fund Facility Arrangements, Request for modifications of performance criteria, and Second review Under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility Arrangement-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Alternative Executive Director for the Republic of Moldova
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This paper presents IMF’s Sixth Review under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) Arrangements, Request for Modifications of Performance Criteria, and Second Review under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) Arrangement for Moldova. The recovery from adverse spillovers from Russia’s war in Ukraine and energy price shocks is taking hold. Growth picked up in 2024 and is expected to strengthen further in 2025, driven by robust domestic demand. Downside risks remain high, mainly related to Russia’s war in Ukraine and renewed energy shocks. While quantitative performance of the program has been strong, implementation of structural reforms has been uneven. Further reforms to enhance fiscal performance and the allocation of public resources, strengthen energy security, strengthen governance and the rule of law, and advance climate adaptation and mitigation are key to protect Moldova against shocks and improve its growth prospects.
Keywords:
Gradual consolidation; Consultation band; Energy security; Climate policy; Credit; EU integration; EU reform agenda; Natural disasters; Policy commitment; CB governance; Anti-corruption; Letter of intent.; B. government policy; weather events risk; energy transition; RSF reform; authorities' reform; reform measure; Fiscal risks; Budget planning and preparation; Climate change; Global