EC spring report sees hard times ahead for accession candidates

Economic growth in EU candidate countries will be slower than expected as th e impact of a global slowdown and political uncertainties break economies as they travel along the path toward membership, the European Commission announ ced in its Spring report yesterday. Overall GDP growth should amount to 3.1% for the ten aspirants. "This represents a slight downward revision from the autumn 2002 forecast," the report said. However, an expected return to more favorable international conditions should allow GDP to grow by 4.0% in 2004 in acceding countries and by 4.3% among all candidate countries. The report warned that fiscal policy in candidate countries must be tightened after the aggregate general government deficits for the ten acceding countries reached 5.3% of GDP last year. The report said that inflation would accelerate to an average of 3.3% for the ten countries from 2.7% this year and last. (Reuter s) M.M.