BRUSSELS: Economic growth across the European Union will remain robust this year and next, particularly when compared with Britain, which is set to leave the bloc in less than a year, the EU’s executive branch said Thursday.

In its spring forecast, the European Commission said it expects economic growth across the 28-country EU to dip to 2.3 per cent this year, from last year’s decade-high rate of 2.4pc. Next year, it expects a further easing to 2pc. For the 19-country eurozone, the Commission forecasts the same levels of growth this year and next.

Pierre Moscovici, the commissioner responsible for economic matters, said the forecasts are further evidence that the debt crisis that has ravaged the eurozone and many of its members, notably Greece, is now past.

“All indicators are currently flashing green,” he said. “Europe has finally turned the page of the crisis.” Still, he said there was no room for complacency and warned of the perils of trade protectionism amid fears that U.S. President Donald Trump will go ahead with plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum. Earlier this week, he exempted the EU for a month. “Protectionism only creates problems and we hope that we can find ways and means of avoiding that,” Moscovici said.

He also urged eurozone governments to push on with economic reforms, particularly to their labor markets. Though the rebound in growth over the past couple of years has seen unemployment across the bloc fall, the jobless rate remains elevated at 8.5pc. It is exorbitantly high in some countries like Greece, where more than one in five people are out of work.

“In short, we have come a long way but now is not the time to sit down and relax,” he said. The eurozone has benefited from waning fears over debt-ridden Greece and the defeat of a run of populist and anti-euro politicians in elections in France and the Netherlands.

Moscovici made much of the fact that for the first time since the euro was born in 1999, no country in 2018 will have a budget deficit over 3pc of annual GDP a key limit that governs the single currency and which has been flouted by many countries.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2018