(Bloomberg) -- The euro-area economy will pick up less momentum next year than previously foreseen and only expand slightly more strongly than in 2024, according to a Bloomberg survey.
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Analysts in the poll now predict growth of 1% in 2025. While that’s up from 0.8% this year, it’s down from an earlier estimate of 1.2%. They also lowered their expectations for 2026 to 1.2% from 1.4%.
For Germany, which is struggling with an extended downturn in its key manufacturing sector, economists now see 0.4% expansion in 2025 and 1% in 2026, down 0.3 percentage point each year. Predictions for France were also lowered, while Spain is seen growing slightly more quickly than before.
The predictions are more pessimistic than those of the European Central Bank, which also lowered its outlook this month as it cut interest rates for the fourth time since June. Officials still expect households to drive a recovery as incomes rise and inflation stabilizes at the 2% goal, though they’ve repeatedly overestimated how quickly that boost will materialize.
“There’s solid reasons to believe there will be an improvement in the economy next year and the year after,” ECB Chief Economist Philip Lane said in a podcast released Friday. But “even though consumption is now rising, there may be a little bit of a delay in that, because in a world of uncertainty, maybe some people are holding back on consumption decisions.”
Economists in the survey expect inflation to reach 2% in the second quarter of 2025, where it’s seen staying before dipping to 1.9% a year later. Core inflation — one of the ECB’s remaining concerns — is expected to come down more quickly than in the previous poll, hitting 2% in the third quarter of 2025.
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