Reuters
November 24, 2011
It will be years before the euro zone's peripheral economies -- Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain -- recover strongly from recession or weak growth, high unemployment and raging budget deficits, a Reuters poll showed on Thursday.
The survey of around 30 economists, taken over the past week, painted a bleak outlook for the debt-ridden states have threatened the existence of the common currency bloc.
Growth forecasts for next year and 2013 were slashed as unemployment rates across the four countries show little sign of falling to around the bloc average until 2014 at the earliest.
In many cases, the Reuters consensus is far below official government forecasts for growth.
Ireland and Spain are expected to fare best of the four countries in 2012, with 0.7 percent growth, and nothing at all for Madrid. Greece and Portugal are each expected to shrink by about 3 percent, digging an even deeper hole in their state finances.
"The intensifying debt crisis and the likelihood of further austerity measures are going to take a heavy toll on domestic spending and there is little sign that the external sector will be able to take up the slack," said Ben May at Capital Economics.
"These economies are likely to fall back."
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