EU trims growth estimate, expects German slump
The European Commission cut its growth estimate for the euro area this year and predicted a recession for the German economy, the region's largest.
The economy of the 15 nations that use the euro will probably expand 1.3 percent this year, the Brussels-based commission said yesterday, revising down its April forecast of 1.7 percent. It signaled the 2009 forecast may also be lowered in a separate report due in November.
Europe's economy shrank in the three months through June and Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker, who leads a group of euro-area finance chiefs, yesterday said there is a "risk of a technical recession" as manufacturing and services activity contract and confidence falls. The commission forecast recessions in Germany and Spain, as well as in the UK, which isn't in the euro area.
