Brussels, 07/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - Before the Eurogroup meeting on Monday evening attended by the President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso, Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Joaquin Almunia and Commissioner for Social Affairs Vladimir Spidla met the vice-president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Lucas Papademos, as well as the trade union representatives (CEES) and representatives of the employers association (UNICE) in the context of macro-economic dialogue. On this occasion, the various parties stressed their respective contributions to growth and to stability and examined the ECB's forecasts for 2005. The European Central Bank is now envisaging a growth range between 1.2% and 2%, which is down compared to its earlier forecasts - but this fall is mainly due to the fact that the bad results notched up during the last quarter 2004 have been carried over (EUROPE of 4 March, p.13).
The analysis is quite in line with that of the Directorate General ECFIN at the European Commission, which had itself reviewed estimates downward in the shorter term for the first quarter of the year, sources familiar with the issue say.
Refusing to anticipate the figures of the European Commission's next spring forecasts, the spokesperson for Commissioner Almunia pointed out that these forecasts should not be adopted as planned on 21 March but some time after.