I was aimlessly surfing wikipedia and stumbled upon a list of European GDP numbers over the last few years.
What caused the decline between 2014 and 2015 numbers. You can see a clear decline all across the board between those years while the markets where slowly climbing over all.
Did I miss a crisis, am I overlooking a reason or does wikipedia have it's head up it's ass and fucked up the numbers?
I'd also like to point out you can clearly see the economic impact of the embargoes on Russia:
2013 - 2,230.624
2016 - 1,267.754
So yeah it's hurting.
There was an EU crisis with Greece potentially defaulting and worries that the other EU members would have to foot the bill. Also high unemployment in Italy, Greece, and a few others (low GDP if there is lower production).
However the larger concern is that outside of Germany and Switzerland (and possibly France) many of the western European countries aren't actually producing anything and their main industries are really just becoming tourism related. Also in the case of Britain which was once the banking center of the world the financial centers have become more decentralized around the globe (especially in the wake of LIBOR).