May 17 (SeeNews) - All five EU member states from Southeast Europe (SEE) managed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the final quarter of 2022, with Slovenia achieving the highest rate of decrease, 15.9%, the EU's statistical office said.
The decline in emissions across the SEE countries was not detrimental to their economies, as gross domestic product (GDP) rose in all five of them, Eurostat said in a data release earlier this week.
After Slovenia, Netherlands and Slovakia recorded the highest decreases across the bloc. Croatia was the SEE country which showed the most limited decline in greenhouse gas emissions, according to the data.
The five SEE countries followed a predominant trend for emissions decline across the EU, with only four countries - Ireland, Latvia, Malta and Denmark posting GHG increases in the fourth quarter of last year, as their economies also expanded in real terms.
In the last quarter of 2022, greenhouse gas emissions in the EU economy as a whole amounted to 938 million tonnes of CO2-equivalents, which was 4% less than in the same quarter of 2021, while the bloc's GDP increased 1.5%. In a positive development, greenhouse gas emissions across the EU were also 9% lower than in the fourth quarter of the pre-pandemic 2019, Eurostat also said.