Economic outlook worse than expected

The European Commission has had to revise its economic forecast for this year in light of the difficulties that Member States, such as Germany, are still facing. Policymakers now say that the euro zone will only grow by about 0.5 percent, rather than the 1 percent they had originally envisaged.

On Tuesday, the Commission said that the economy shrank in the second quarter, only the second time this has happened since the introduction of the single currency in 1999.

In its analysis ...