Brussels, 15/05/2009 (Agence Europe) - The European Union slumped further into recession in the first quarter of the year, recording a 2.5% fall in gross domestic product (GDP) on the previous quarter. This is record fall in output, even outstripping that of the United States, according to statistics published by Eurostat on Friday 15 May.
The 16 countries that use the euro recorded their fourth quarter in a row of falling economic output because eurozone GDP fell by 0.2% in both the second and third quarter of 2008 and then by 1.6% in the fourth quarter of 2008. The Q109 fall is the biggest quarterly fall in GDP in the eurozone since eurozone statistics began in 1995, explains Eurostat. The eurozone as such was created in 1999 but Eurostat extrapolated backwards to come up with figures for the previous years.
The full 27-nation European Union also recorded a slump in economic output of 2.5% in Q109, following a 1.5% fall in the previous quarter. EU27 economic output fell by 4.4% in annual terms. Of the big eurozone economies, Germany has been particularly badly hit, with GDP shrinking by 3.8% in the first quarter of 2009, the biggest fall since the publication of quarterly statistics began in 1970. Italy saw a 2.4% contraction and Spain a 1.8% contraction. France is doing better, with a fall in GDP of only 1.2%. Outside the eurozone, the United Kingdom's economy contracted by 1.9% in the first quarter of 2009. (L.C./transl.fl)