EFN Report Summer 2011: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2011 and 2012
The worldwide upswing has lost momentum, but it will overcome the present slowdown. Monetary policy is overall still accommodative, and growth dynamics continue to be high in emerging market countries. For the euro area, we expect GDP to grow by around 1.9% in 2011 and 1.7% in 2012, not enough to bring the unemployment rate back significantly below 10%. In fact, in a large core region of the euro area the upswing is well under way; this region includes, apart from Germany and some smaller economies, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. However, the crisis of confidence in the ability of EU institutions to master the fiscal crises is a major threat to the continuation of the upswing.
