Sunday, February 24, 2013

EU Doesn't Like Its Forecasts, So It Removes Them From Its Site

With thanks to Yogi Berra, making predictions is hard, especially about the future. And with constantly revised forecasts for the EU, the European Commission decides the safe safe thing to do is Eliminate Forecasts for 2015.

Via Google Translate from El Economista ...
This morning you could see the data for 2012, 2103, 2014 and 2015, but now can only see the figures from 2011 to 2014 and there is no trace of the catastrophic 2015 numbers (see the screenshots attached below).

Although there is no official communication in one way or another, hypothetically could be a real blunder produced after being released by mistake, or any type of computer failure, a former forecasts for 2012 under the 2015 column.'s say, that would have mistakenly announced as 2015 forecast estimates released earlier this year to last year.

Forecasts of Discord

Those European Commission forecasts envisage a general improvement in economic scenario for 2014. However, estimates for 2015, this morning hidden behind an interactive graphic , pointed for a few hours, before being erased-a brutal relapse. In fact, Germany would grow 2% in 2014 to only 0.8% in 2015, would UK from 1.9% to 0.3%, France 1.2% and Spain 0.2% from 0.8% to -1.4%.
Sooner or Later

El Economista has some interesting snapshots of the removed estimates. To be completely fair, the original posting may have been a simple mistake.

Regardless, I suggest the EU forecast for 2014 is too optimistic.

Will the EU 2014 estimates be revised lower as well? If not soon, then expect revisions later, with France leading the way lower.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com