There is no question the British economy is buoyant but there is a growing fashion to suggest other member states of the EU are lagging distantly behind. But this is simply not the case.

The predicted GDP growth of each EU country is expected to be positive in 2006, with Portugal’s 0.9 being the lowest and Estonia’s the highest at 8.9, despite dropping from 9.8 in 2005. Interestingly, many of the EU’s newest member states are predicted to have the highest GDP growth for 2006. Remarkably, 18 countries inside the EU will grow faster than the UK.

Even the so called “basket case” of Germany, which has had high unemployment since reunification, has just resumed its place as the world’s largest exporter (where as Britain still has a large trade deficit).