European Commission warns adverse conditions “continue” but EU will avoid recession and grow by 0.9% in 2023
With one year to go since the start of the war in Ukraine, the European economy is showing slight signs of improvement: the EU will “barely” avoid a technical recession and will grow by 0.9% this year. The European Commission’s winter economic forecasts anticipate 2023 with mild economic expansion, though they point out that “serious setbacks” are still lingering, including inflation – which has had three months of declines but is still skyrocketing – and energy costs – which will control consumption and economic activity. In this context, the Spanish economy will grow by 1.4% this year, four-tenths more than estimated in August, and rise to 2% in 2024.
These data are an improvement on forecasts published by Brussels in the autumn, when it predicted a “technical recession” in the bloc. According to their latest estimates, the EU and the Eurozone will “barely avoid” a recession, growing by 0.8 and 0.9% respectively in 2023. In addition, the institution points out that the three consecutive months of lower inflation “suggest” that prices reached their “peak” in October, when the rate skyrocketed to 10.6%. The most recent data, from January, puts prices at 8.5% and Brussels expects them to continue to fall to 6.4% throughout the year and fall to 2.8% in 2024.
In the first half of 2022, the European economy grew “robustly”, before slowing down in the third quarter. The annual growth rate was 3.5% in the EU and the Eurozone and Brussels is seeing signs of optimism this year: the diversification of energy supplies and the “fall in consumption” have meant that the capacity of gas reserves, which price of energy. The labor market remains strong, with the unemployment rate at a record low (6.1%). Confidence is gradually improving and economic activity is expected to continue to grow in the first quarter of the year.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
