In the East European region, the aggregated construction outlook for next year has remained positive, only the trajectory has changed a little, according to the winter report of the Eastern European Construction Forecasting Association (EECFA).
The report points out that recovery is expected to continue in Ukraine, but EECFA still doesn't see the arrival of a massive post-war reconstruction.
Bulgaria's total construction output is forecasted to increase by 3% on average for 2026-2027, says Yasen Georgiev at Economic Policy Institute (EPI), EECFA's Bulgarian research institute. This is to follow estimates for a similar performance of almost 3% in 2025. The sectoral background shows a nuanced picture – cooling of residential construction, positive news from non-residential and a robust performance of civil engineering. The latter will benefit from investments which will be backed by the absorption of EU funds through the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) and operational programmes, both with implementation deadlines in 2026 and 2027. Bulgaria's economy is to expand by 2.4% on average in 2026-2027 – a period continuously shaped also by the Euro adoption starting 2026.
Michael Glazer (SEE Regional Advisors) and Tatjana Halapija (Nada Projekt), EECFA's Croatian members, think that declining dwelling sales in Croatia have, paradoxically, failed to stop the growth in the value of Croatian residential output, because increases in the price per sqm of those dwellings that do get sold have more than compensated for the lower number of sqm bought. But how long this can continue is unclear, they add. The policies that the Croatian government is implementing in order to ease the country's housing crisis are confusing the residential picture still more, since a number of those policies have contradictory effects on output. As to non-residential building construction, output growth during the period covered by the current forecast will depend greatly on the sector, with some likely to continue to benefit from catch-up growth and EU support for a bit longer and others moving toward a steady state or even a decline.
Romania's economy is entering a challenging period as the recently implemented measures to reduce the national account deficit begin to take effect, reports Dr. Sebastian Sipos-Gug, EECFA's Romanian researcher at Ebuild. While most forecasters do not anticipate a recession, economic growth is expected to remain subdued over the next two years. Inflation is the highest in the EU, boosted in 2025 by increases in sales taxes. As a result, consumer prices are rising at a pace that is forecasted to outstrip wage growth, leading to a decline in real incomes in both 2025 and 2026. Government spending is also facing cuts, thus both private and public consumption are predicted to decline, with a chilling effect on most construction activity types. On the brighter side, both the economy at large and the labour market are expected to be quite resilient. By 2027, assuming the deficit reaches manageable levels, the effects of contractionary policies should fade out, inflation could ease, and interest rates could come down.
