the recession that the eurozone experienced from october to march was quite literally the mildest possible but the flip side is that most recent data show that the european economy appears to be going absolutely nowhere the eurostat statistics agency on thursday revised its estimate of firstquarter gdp from an initially reported rise of 01 to a decrease of 01 that follows the 01 dip in the fourth quarter of 2022 which also represented a downward revision from a previous estimate of stagnation unlike the us the eurozone data is presented in a quarteronquarter format by the same metric the us economy grew 03 in the first quarter compared to the 13 annualized rate the commerce department reported while sputtering it’s important to note the eurozone economy isn’t collapsing either eurostat reported there was a 06 increase in employment and the same growth in hours worked during the quarter the national bureau of economic research which assesses whether the us is in recession says it puts the most emphasis on employment and personal income adjusted for inflation and transfer payments the eurozone downgrade was expected after germany and ireland each had lowered their assessments of the first quarter the biggest drags came from inventories and government and household spending both weighed on the eurozone economy eurostat said the loss of natural gas exports from russia has put pressure on both businesses and households in europe related inside germany’s industrialsized effort to wean itself off putin and russian natural gas “the significant downward revision was mainly due to germany revising down its numbers as new data came in this fuels the idea that march activity was very weak making a quick rebound in the second quarter unlikely with may survey data being weak across the board it is likely that we only get a modest uptick after the two quarters of downturn” said bert colijn senior economist eurozone at ing the hcob eurozone composite pmi index fell to a threemonth low of 528 in may a level that is expansionary the european commission’s eurozone economic sentiment indicator fell 25 points to 965 which is below the 100 longterm average from 2000 to 2022 the european central bank next week is expected to continue its ratehike campaign with a quarterpoint increase even as the staff is likely to lower gdp estimates for this year and next the vanguard ftse europe etf vgk  a popular vehicle for investing in european equities has climbed 10 this year a slight underperformance to the 11 advance for the sp 500 spx  the euro eurusd this year has inched higher versus the dollar