The eurozone entered recession in the first quarter of 2023, the second straight quarter in which the zone’s GDP fell 0.1% year-on-year, according to Eurostat’s final data released on Thursday.

“The contraction of eurozone GDP in the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023 was 0.1% year on year,” Eurostat said in a statement.

Thus, according to the statistical service of the EU, since the first quarter, the eurozone “is in recession”, the definition of which is a consistent economic decline for two quarters in a row.

In its preliminary estimates, Eurostat said that in the fourth quarter of 2022, eurozone GDP grew by 0.1%, and in the first quarter of 2023, growth accelerated to 0.2%. The European Commission used the same figures in its spring economic forecasts released in May, when it announced that the eurozone “nearly avoided a recession.”

Eurostat attributes this major revision of its statistical estimate to a larger-than-expected industrial downturn. First of all, this concerns the largest EU economy – Germany.

Source: AFP, TASS