EU predicts eurozone recession to continue in 2013

Associated Press ^ | May 3, 2013 9:00 AM EDT | Raf Casert

[Olog-hai]

Europe will take longer to recover from its economic crisis as it tackles a worse-than-expected recession in the eurozone and unemployment at record levels, the European Union warned Friday.

In its spring economic forecast, the EU said that gross domestic product in the 17 member countries that use the euro will shrink by 0.4 percent this year; better than the 0.6 percent contraction in 2012, but 0.1 percentage points worse than the EU had forecast back in February.

The report also had bad news for the wider 27-country EU: it now expects the region’s economy to shrink by 0.1 percent in 2013, against a forecast of 0.1 percent growth in February. …

The grim outlook even forced EU Commissioner Olli Rehn to raise the specter that France, the bloc’s second biggest economy, may be given two extra years to bring its deficit within the target 3 percent of gross domestic product needed for a sustainable future. …

[Olog-hai]

Well, they wanted to raise taxes as an “austerity” measure. Nothing kills growth like that. (And what’s with the mandated 3% of GDP thingy, so apparently vital that they had to put it in the treaties?) Of course, this “beneficial crisis” will continue until the elites get what they want out of the member states, which is total surrender of governmental and economic power.

[Steely Tom]

Tough luck for them, but I don’t care ‘cause over here in the USA we’re in our fourth summer of recovery.