The eurozone slipped into recession in the first three months of the year, after official figures were revised to show the bloc’s economy shrank as the rising cost of living weighed on consumer spending.
Figures from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency, showed gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.1% in the first quarter of 2023 and the final three months of 2022 after revisions to earlier estimates. A technical recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
Previous estimates suggested the single-currency bloc had narrowly avoided recession with zero growth in both quarters.
Households across the eurozone have come under pressure from rising living costs after the Russian invasion of Ukraine triggered a sharp increase in gas prices, fuelling the highest rates of inflation since the foundation of the single-currency bloc.
With consumers under pressure from the higher energy and food prices, household final consumption dragged down GDP across the euro area by 0.1 percentage points, after a larger 1 percentage-point drop in the previous quarter.
