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In 2008, the government deficit and government debt of both the euro area (EA16) and the EU27 increased compared with 2007. In the euro area the government deficit to GDP ratio increased from 0.6% in 20073 to 1.9% in 2008, and in the EU27 it increased from 0.8% to 2.3%. In the euro area the government debt to GDP ratio increased from 66.0% at the end of 2007 to 69.3% at the end of 2008, and in the EU27 from 58.7% to 61.5%.

According to the latest revisions, the EU27 external current account recorded a deficit of 57.3 billion euro in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared with a deficit of 21.6 bn in the fourth quarter of 2007 and a deficit of 67.4 bn in the third quarter of 2008.

The United Kingdom has joined the 26 other EU Member States and the European Community as a signatory to the 2004 anti-contraband and anti-counterfeit agreement with Philip Morris International (PMI) and the 2007 cooperation agreement with Japan Tobacco International (JTI). Now all EU Member States are parties to these agreements. Every year, the European Community and the Member States lose hundreds of millions of euros in unpaid taxes from contraband and counterfeit cigarettes. Moreover, counterfeit and other forms of contraband create a parallel illegal supply chain that compromises legitimate distribution channels and competes unfairly with genuine products.

Economic activity will remain weak in the euro area this year, with a gradual recovery in 2010, while inflation "may reach negative levels around mid-year" without this implying a protracted period of deflation, ECB Vice President Lucas Papademos told MEPs on Tuesday.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index™ (LEI) for France declined 0.7 percent and The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index™ (CEI) decreased 0.2 percent in February.

The first quarter of 2009 saw a dramatic change in fortune for the arts and antiques market as buyers re-entered the market looking for alternative investment opportunities, says the RICS Arts and Antiques Survey published 20 April 2009.

Nearly two thirds of the EU population favoured coordinated action by the EU countries to fight the economic crisis, but only 39% believed that, so far, this has happened sufficiently. In a poll taken from mid January to mid February, 81% of respondents said the financial crisis has important consequences for the European economy, while 58% said they already felt these consequences in their personal lives.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index™ (LEI) for Germany declined 1.8 percent and The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index™ (CEI) for Germany decreased 0.6 percent in February.

The number of dangerous consumer products withdrawn from the EU market rose by 16% in 2008 compared to in 2007, the Commission's annual report on the Community rapid alert system for non-food dangerous products. This rise from 1 605 notifications in 2007 to 1 866 last year shows that the capacity of the RAPEX system has substantially increased again in 2008, following a substantial investment of resources and training by the European Commission and Member States.

The current account of the euro area balance of payments recorded a deficit of EUR 22.0 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008. The largest bilateral deficits were with the group of “other countries” i.e. non-G10 countries outside the European Union, the European Union institutions and Japan. By contrast, the largest surpluses were with the United Kingdom, the countries that joined the European Union in 2004 and 2007 and the United States.