Eurozone recession is now longest in currency bloc

PARIS (AP) — The eurozone is now in its longest ever recession — a stubborn slump that has surpassed even the calamity that hit the region in the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

The European Union statistics office said Wednesday that nine of the 17 EU countries that use the euro are in recession, with France a notable addition to the list. Overall, the eurozone's economy contracted for the sixth straight quarter, shrinking by 0.2 percent in the January-March period from the previous three months.

Though the contraction is an improvement on the previous quarter's 0.6 percent decline, it's another unwelcome report for the single-currency bloc as it grapples with a debt crisis that has prompted governments to slash spending and raise taxes.

"The eurozone is facing a double blow from necessary restructuring of its domestic economy and somewhat disappointing growth in world trade, in particular demand from emerging markets," said Marie Diron, senior economic adviser to Ernst & Young.

This recession is not nearly as deep as the one in 2008-9, which ran for five quarters, but it is now the longest in the 14-year history of the euro. A recession is typically defined as two straight quarters of negative growth.

Austerity measures have inflicted severe economic pain and produced social unrest across the eurozone, where the average unemployment rate is a record 12.1 percent and higher in some places. In Spain, it's 26.7 percent and in Greece 27.2 percent.

Wednesday's report also brought bad news for the wider 27-country EU, which includes non-euro members such as Britain and Poland. The EU too is now in recession after shrinking by a quarterly rate of 0.1 percent in the first quarter, following a 0.5 percent drop in the previous period.

With a population of more than half a billion people, the EU is the world's largest export market. If it remains stuck in reverse, companies in the U.S. and Asia will be hit. Last month, U.S.-based Ford Motor Co. lost $462 million in Europe and called the outlook there "uncertain." McDonald's saw its sales in Europe, the hamburger chain's biggest market outside the U.S., fall 1.1 percent of in the first quarter.

Other major economies have faltered this year but none are in recession. The annualized contraction in the eurozone, based on this quarter's figures, of around 0.9 percent contrasts with the equivalent expansion of the U.S. of 2.5 percent. Meanwhile, China, the world's No. 2 economy, is growing around 8 percent a year.

For many analysts, that discrepancy highlights Europe's flawed economic approach since the end of the financial crisis. Instead of keeping the spending taps on — as the U.S. has largely done — the region concentrated on austerity even though companies and consumers weren't able to plug the gap left by the retrenching state.

However, there have been some recent indications that Europe's leaders are willing to ease up on their adherence to cuts and tax increases at a time of recession. Some countries, for example, are being given more time to meet certain economic and financial targets.

Also, the European Central Bank cut its benchmark interest rate this month a quarter-point to a record low of 0.50 percent. President Mario Draghi has said the ECB was prepared to flex its muscles further if needed.

Despite the latest relaxation of some deficit-reduction targets — and an easing of concerns over the debt crisis in financial markets — most economists think the eurozone will remain in recession in the second quarter.

Growth is expected to emerge in the second half of the year, but it isn't likely to amount to much. Many economists warn of a lost decade ahead for the eurozone similar to the one endured by Japan, which, like the eurozone, has zigzagged in and out of recession over the past few years. In the fourth quarter of 2012, the last set of available figures, Japan's economy was flat.

The eurozone has been in recession since the fourth quarter of 2011. Initially it was just the countries at the forefront of its debt crisis, such as Greece and Portugal that were contracting.

But the malaise is now spreading to the so-called core countries. Figures released Wednesday showed Germany, Europe's largest economy, grew by a less-than-anticipated quarterly rate of 0.1 percent, largely because of a severe winter.

"The Achilles heel for the German economy right now is the weak demand for investment goods" such as industrial equipment and factory machinery, said Ralf Wiechers, economist for the German Engineering Association.

"No one knows where things are going in Europe."

Germany's paltry growth still allowed it to avoid a recession after orders for the country's high-value goods from its struggling euro neighbors declined.

However, France, Europe's second-largest economy, has not avoided that fate. On the first anniversary of Francois Hollande becoming president, figures showed that the country's economy contracted by a quarterly rate of 0.2 percent for the second quarter running.

"The eurozone countries are our main clients and our main suppliers," French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said.

This marks the third time that France has been in recession since 2008, when a banking crisis pushed the global economy into its deepest contraction since World War II.

Guillaume Cairou, CEO of the consultancy Didaxis and president of France's Club of Entrepreneurs, said the news that the country is in recession merely confirms the difficulties its businesses have long experienced.

"The situation of companies on the ground is grave and more serious today than in 2008," Cairou said in a written statement.

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Pylas contributed from London. Geir Moulson in Berlin and David McHugh in Frankfurt also contributed to this story.

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UK in dark mood as new recession may be confirmed

LONDON (AP) — Recession may just be a word. But in Britain it may become a habit — and a dangerous one at that.

It's possible that official figures on first quarter economic growth, to be released Thursday, could put the country back in recession, and tension is building.

Although economists on average expect growth of 0.1 percent on the quarter, they warn it would take the smallest statistical variation to put the figure in negative territory. That would place the country in recession, technically defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.

Another recession — the third since the 2008 financial crisis — is already being referred to with foreboding in the media as a "Triple Dip." Experts warn that its confirmation would create a wave of negative media attention that would scare consumers away from spending, feeding into a vicious cycle that has the economy flat-lining.

"It's psychological — this is all psychological," said Cary Cooper, a professor at Lancaster University Management School. "It's about the message that those figures send to consumers and small businesses."

The government desperately wants a strong number to justify its increasingly criticized policy of painful spending cuts. But recent indicators on Britain's economy, the third-largest in the 27-country EU after Germany and France, have been disappointing.

Inflation is rising, cutting into people's standard of living. Unemployment is up. Two international ratings agencies have downgraded the country's credit grade from the top level AAA, warning about the government's fiscal policies.

The government, which has long played on its AAA rating as a sign of its economic might, has been pursuing a harsh program of spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the budget deficit, which at 7.4 percent of annual economic output is more than twice the EU's 3 percent limit. Like many governments across Europe that have been scarred by the bond market turmoil that forced Greece and four other countries to need rescue loans, Britain is focusing on reducing debt quickly, even at the cost of short-term economic pain.

What some governments and economists are slowly realizing, however, is that they may have underestimated the damage such austerity would do.

There's long been pressure domestically in Britain to ease off the budget cuts, but in the past few days the International Monetary Fund also chimed in. The fund, whose views carry weight as it is involved in all of Europe's sovereign bailout programs, has pressured Treasury chief George Osborne to slow down the austerity measures in hopes of reviving the economy, whose output last year was worth 1.4 trillion pounds ($2.1 trillion at current exchange rates).

As the debate rages on, no other person than the national spiritual leader — the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby — has waded in and used a word no want wants to hear: Depression.

Welby has unusual standing in the world of money because in a previous life he served as an oil industry executive and now sits on the parliamentary banking standards committee. He told an audience at the heart of government in Westminster on Monday that there was an issue of confidence and trust — and there is need to rebuild both.

"I would argue that what we are in at the moment is not a recession, but essentially some kind of depression and it therefore takes something very, very major to get out of it in the same way as it took something major for us to get into it," he said.

The Bank of England has cut interest rates to record lows and pumped money into the financial system in the hope that will encourage banks to lend money more cheaply. But the results have been mixed and experts say there is only so much a central bank can do to create jobs.

Even if the economy dodges recession, the daily reality for many Britons remains tough.

The Trussell Trust, a food bank network, said it fed more than 350,000 people in the year ending in March — more than double the 128,000 served in the previous 12-month period. Tim Boyce, a retired investment banker who runs a south London branch, said he's seeing the people behind those numbers. Inside a frosty church that's opened its doors to the desperate, he watches as they come for emergency handouts of rice, pasta and beans.

"Most people don't realize the extent of poverty," he said as he sipped coffee to keep the edge off the chill. "It's hiding in plain view."

Take the cases of Kevin Bishenden, 50, and his wife, Nicola, 40. He's an upholsterer who says that no one wants to hire someone his age. She says she just can't find work. The only reason they aren't homeless is that Britain's welfare state manages to keep a roof over their heads.

But they've slowly been shedding all their possessions, together with memories of a past life. First a bike, then stuff from the kitchen. All the DVDs are going, though even Star Trek only gets you a few pennies. They've already sold their wedding rings.

He lamented a new council tax payment of 15 pounds ($22.80) that came into effect as part of government austerity plans. His exhaustion was plain as he tried to imagine paying for it.

"Where's that supposed to come from?"

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