Economists polled by Reuters predicted that the recession in Europe that began late last year would continue into the new year and they weren’t disappointed. Reuters announced that economic output in the 17-member eurozone declined by 0.3 percent in the last quarter of 2011, the sharpest since the second quarter of 2009 at the start of the recession. Those same economists are now predicting that European GDP growth will stay negative at least for the rest of the year with only modest chances of improvement in 2013.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has the same negative expectations, predicting at least a 0.5-percent contraction of the eurozone countries next year. Even Germany, long the anchor to windward and the engine of growth for the European community, went negative in the last quarter compared to its modest growth rate of 0.6 percent in the third quarter.
Investment banking firm ING admitted that the decline caught their forecasters by surprise. Carsten Brzeski said the economic contraction “turned out to be weaker than expected.”
The Netherlands declined into recession (defined as two quarters of declines in GDP, or “negative growth” in economic parlance) with its third quarter contraction of 0.4 percent followed by another 0.7 percent decline in the fourth. Italy’s economy dropped by 0.7 percent in the last quarter with little improvement expected for at least a year. This puts Italy into the same recessionary camp as Belgium, Portugal, and Greece.
Portugal may be looking for another bailout as its economy suffered at 1.3 percent decline in the fourth quarter, more than double the 0.6 percent decline from the third quarter.
But Greece is the basket-case poster child for economic performance, with a stunning
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