If there is any question about the existence of a new recession in Europe, statistics operation Eurostat answered it. The agency has reported gross domestic product data for the final quarter of 2012:
GDP fell by 0.6% in the euro area (EA17) and by 0.5% in the EU27 during the fourth quarter of 2012, compared with the previous quarter, according to second estimates published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In the third quarter of 2012, growth rates were -0.1% and +0.1% respectively.
Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, GDP fell by 0.9% in the euro area and by 0.6% in the EU27 in the fourth quarter of 2012, after -0.6% and -0.4% respectively in the previous quarter.
And:
Among Member States for which data are available for the fourth quarter of 2012, Latvia (+1.3%), Estonia (+0.9%) and Lithuania (+0.7%) recorded the highest growth compared with the previous quarter, and Portugal (-1.8%), Cyprus and Slovenia (both -1.0%) the largest decreases.
Greece, the poorest stepchild in the region, did not release fourth-quarter numbers.
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