EU's Almunia said central scenario is for no growth this quarter. The Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner said the growth deceleration will gain momentum in H2 and that the start of 2009 "will not be very good", even though the central scenario is still for small growth in Q4. At the same time the risks to the outlook are tilted towards the downside, while the risks to the price outlook are tilted slightly to the upside. This sounds slightly more pessimistic than the ECB on the growth outlook. So far central bankers remain very concerned about inflation, but officials now start to indicate that the headline rate should fall below 2% again in 2010 and this should help the ECB to consider rate cuts next year if growth really fails to pick up.
