Policy Challenges in Europe

Extract

The last quarter of 2009 saw the quarterly growth of GDP in the Euro Area stagnating after growth of less than half a per cent in the third quarter. This followed on from six quarters of declining output. The performance of individual economies differed, with output declining in Ireland, Greece, Italy and Spain, as can be seen from figure 18. Output stagnated in Germany and Finland and grew moderately in Slovenia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria. Only France exhibited growth that might be seen as near that of underlying capacity. As we can see from figure 19, in the new member states, the quarterly GDP growth in the last quarter of 2009 ranged from a decline of around 3 per cent in Romania and Latvia to growth of just over 1 per cent in Poland and just over 2 per cent in Estonia.