The fragile eurozone will need another year to reach even a modest level of economic growth, the European Commission said yesterday, revising down its forecasts and predicting more of the low inflation and high joblessness that plagues the bloc.

In its autumn estimates, the EU executive said the eurozone’s economy would expand 0.8 per cent this year, 1.1 per cent next year and by 1.7 per cent in 2016 – a level the Commission said six months ago would be achieved next year. The delay in the upturn was due to drag on the economy from France and Italy.

The eurozone’s faltering recovery from the financial crisis is becoming a wider concern as the currency bloc that generates a fifth of world economic output holds back a broader global revival led by the United States.

“The slowdown in Europe has occurred as the legacy of the global financial and economic crisis lingers,” said Marco Buti, the director general of the Commission’s economics department.

“We see growth ... coming to a stop in Germany ... protracted stagnation in France and contraction in Italy,” he said in a statement on the forecasts for 2014 to 2016.

The Commission data appears to avoid the relapse into recession that European Central Bank President Mario Draghi warned EU leaders of at a summit in Brussels last month, but despite a slowly improving trend, indicators remain dour.