December 26, 2025 — In a year when inflation cooled across much of the world and central banks delivered their biggest easing push in more than a decade, economic “winners” depended on what, exactly, you measured: growth, price stability, jobs, market confidence—or societal change. [1]
That tension is at the heart of two closely watched year-end scorecards circulating across European and global media. One is The Economist’s annual ranking of the best-performing advanced economies—where Portugal takes the top spot for 2025 and France places a solid but unspectacular 11th. [2] The other is the magazine’s “country of the year” tradition, focused less on macro data and more on improvement—where Syria is being highlighted by secondary reporting as the standout transformation of 2025, with Argentina frequently described as a close contender thanks to the dramatic,…
