Eurozone in recession for 1.5 years as France double dips

Euro area GDP down by 0.2% and EU27 down by 0.1%  and -1.0% and -0.7% respectively compared with the first quarter of 2012

GDP fell by 0.2% in the euro area1 (EA17) and by 0.1% in the EU271 during the first quarter of 2013, compared with the previous quarter, according to flash estimates2 published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In the fourth quarter of 2012, growth rates were -0.6% and -0.5% respectively.

Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, seasonally adjusted GDP fell by 1.0% in the euro area and by 0.7% in the EU27 in the first quarter of 2013, after -0.9% and -0.6% respectively in the previous quarter.

Complete Press Release @ 

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Euro Zone Economy Shrinks – Recession Returns in France –

The euro zone economy shrank more than expected in the first three months of 2013, official data showed Wednesday, as France returned to recession for the first time since 2009 and Germany barely edged forward.

It marked the longest recession for the euro countries since the currency was introduced in 1999.

The 17-nation euro zone contracted by 0.2 percent in the first quarter from the last three months of 2012, Eurostat, the statistical agency of the European Union, reported from Luxembourg. That was less than the 0.6 percent decline recorded in the fourth quarter, but more than economists’ expectations of a 0.1 percent fall.

The economy of the overall European Union, made up of 27 nations, shrank by 0.1 percent.

Germany, with the largest economy in Europe, was almost stagnant in the first quarter, managing growth of just 0.1 percent from the prior three months, when it shrank by 0.7 percent, the Federal Statistics Office reported in Wiesbaden.

France, the second-largest economy in Europe, contracted for a second consecutive quarter, meeting the common definition of a recession. The economy shrank by 0.2 percent, the same decline as in the fourth quarter of 2012.

French President François Hollande, at a news conference in Brussels after a visit with José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, suggested that the euro zone recession was primarily the result of belt-tightening policies advocated by northern European nations like Germany, Finland and the Netherlands.

France’s dip back into a contraction “has to be regarded as what has happened in the past, not what is going to happen in the future,” he said. “My view is that we’ve got past the most difficult moment. Now if Europe, member states and France organize ourselves to promote growth, then we can return to the hope of a better future,” he said.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor

via Euro Zone Economy Shrinks – Recession Returns in France – NYTimes.com.

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France Double-Dips As European Recession Is Now Longest On Record

Confirming that in a world in which either commercial or central banks have to be constantly be churning out debt, and in a world in which Europe is doing neither (with European commercial loan growth posting sequential declines across the board, and the ECB’s balance sheet still declining although likely not for long), “growth” as defined by conventional standards, is impossible, we got today’s European Q1 GDP data. Not only was it bad, but it was even worse than most had expected.

And while Germany may have escaped a technical recession after its economy grew by the absolute minimum possible 0.1 percent in the first quarter (does it too also include intangibles in its GDP calculation one wonders) following a drop in Q4, it was France that officially double dipped into its second recession in four years with a 0.2 percent contraction and one year into Hollande’s term. As the Bloomberg Brief chart below shows, Germany and France account for 49 percent of euro-area output. Overall, the euro-area economy contracted by 0.2 percent in the first quarter. The region’s economy has been shrinking since October 2011, the longest recession since the start of monetary union…

Meanwhile, France welcomes the double dip:

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor

via France Double-Dips As European Recession Is Now Longest On Record | Zero Hedge.