Eurozone, growth will be slightly lower than expected in November

Brussels – Forget what has been preached so far: for the EU and its eurozone, “growth will be slightly lower than projected in the autumn economic forecast” that the European Commission published on November 15. The Economy Commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, revises expectations for economic performance for the short term, i.e. first and foremost 2025. He does not deny them; he recalls how they were linked to uncertainties that have not disappeared. On the contrary, “they have increased,” he underlines at the end of the Eurogroup work.

The reference is to an international scenario with increasingly undefined contours—the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and its developments, as made clear by Dombrovskis, but not only. The real big unknown remains and indeed takes on even greater connotations: U.S. President Donald Trump and his intention to impose tariffs. Pierre Gramegna, executive director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), clarifies this: “Duties would make forecasts even more unpredictable.” 

The numbers are already starting to look a bit off. Dombrovskis has not provided figures, and the Commission will only publish them in May, at the spring economic forecast (the winter interim ones have been removed from Brussels’ forecasting exercise). This means the EU and its eurozone could lose 0.1 or 0.2 per cent. It will certainly be seen that for 2025, the expected growth will be no more than 1.5 per cent for the EU and 1.3 per cent for the eurozone.