Eurostat the statistics office of the European Community has published the data on economic growth in the Euro-zone for the first three months of 2005 and the estimates for the second quarter. If a brief revival of GDP was registered in the period January-March (+0.5%), especially due to the +1% registered by Germany, Brussels was forced to downgrade its forecasts for growth for the period April-June; the GDP of the 12 countries of the euro area is now estimated to grow by a percentage between 0.2% and 0.6%, an estimate lower than expectations at the beginning of the year. If confirmed, the figure would represent the lowest level of growth in recent times. The main economies giving rise to concern are those of Holland and Italy, which both registered negative growth in the first quarter (respectively 0.1% and 0.5%). Eurostat has warned of the risk of stagnation, due to the “structural weaknesses of a system that has difficulty in exporting and is “investing little in research and human capital”.
