国际英语新闻：Europe's economy set to moderate

BRUSSELS, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The European Union's (EU) economic growth is set to moderate until mid-2011 and economic recovery still fragile and uneven across EU member states, a top EU official said on Monday.

"Look ahead, the pace of GDP growth in the EU is set to moderate somewhat until mid-2011, as the global economy goes through a temporary soft patch, damping EU export growth," European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn told a conference in Brussels.

Rehn said that another factor that is set to weigh on growth prospects in the short to medium term is the fiscal consolidation phase that many EU member states embarked on.

However, the commissioner said that despite some inevitable short-run pains, it s essential that fiscal sustainability will be secured with ambitious plans of adjustment and consolidation.

"Starting to put the fiscal house in order will not push us back into a double-dip recession, on the contrary, it is the failure to consolidate public finances that could jeopardize the on-going recovery," Rehn stressed.

According to the estimates of the EU's statistical bureau Eurostat, the EU's economic growth slowed down significantly from 1 percent in the second quarter to 0.4 percent in the third quarter.