Economic growth in the euro zone slowed to 0.1% in the fourth quarter of 2009 over the previous quarter, an official EU estimate shows today.
Compared with the same quarter in 2008, seasonally adjusted gross domestic product decreased by 2.1% in the euro zone, the EU's Eurostat data agency said.
It added that GDP fell by 4% over the whole year of 2009.
In the full 27-nation European Union, growth also rose by 0.1% in the fourth quarter compared to the previous three months, and decreased by 2.3% over the year.
Earlier, Europe's post-recession recovery hit a roadblock today as German economic growth unexpectedly ground to a halt in the final quarter of 2009, though France made up for some of the damage.
The news comes at a hard time for Europe's single currency bloc as governments struggle to sort out Greece's debt difficulties and contain financial market fears that have driven the euro lower and government bond yields higher.
German economic growth was flat in the final quarter of last year, the statistics office said, following expansions in the two previous quarters that ended a year-long recession. Growth of 0.2% had been forecast.
France, the euro zone's second largest economy, fared better in the same three months with a GDP increase of 0.6% versus the third quarter that, unlike Germany, was driven in large part by healthy consumer spending. That meant France maintained its recovery pace, after a GDP rise of 0.5% in the third-quarter.
Today's figures followed confirmation yesterday that Spain, one of the hardest hit by the end of housing booms across the globe, stayed in recession with a fourth quarter GDP dip of 0.1% compared to the previous three months.
Forecasters for now believe that the euro zone will have a weaker recovery than the US this year, just as it fell harder than the US in 2009.
Industrial production figures compounded the gloomy picture for the euro zone. Eurostat said euro zone production tumbled 1.7% in December from the previous month, defying expectations of growth, and sank 5% over a year. It was the biggest monthly decline since February 2009, when production nose-dived 3.8%.
France star performer in Q4
Meanwhile, new figures show that Italy's economy shrank by 0.2% in the fourth quarter. Figures from heavily-indebted Portugal show that its economy stagnated in Q4, while the Greek economy shrank by 0.8% from Q3.
In France, where the recession knocked 2.2% off GDP in 2009 as a whole compared to a 5% hit in Germany, the end of year news was marginally more positive than expected, once again as a result of domestic demand.
While Germany's statistics office does not give the details behind its GDP estimate for another few days, the French data showed a 0.9% quarter-on-quarter increase in household consumption in the fourth quarter.
That helped to offset the damage from tumbling investment, a major casualty of recession, which fell 1.2% in the final quarter versus the preceding one and dropped 6.9% over 2009 as a whole.
Germany's statistics office said only that falling investment and consumption offset firmer foreign trade in the fourth quarter.
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet has been warning for some time that the recovery in Europe will be 'bumpy' and at times 'chaotic'.
Severe winter weather at the turn of the year may well blur the picture further. Economists say that could hit GDP in the first quarter but that much of such immediate losses are usually made up in the ensuing months.
German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle has already said growth in the first quarter of 2010 could be near zero.
