The European Commission said today that it was likely to cut its euro zone growth forecast for 2003 from the current 1.8 per cent.
A cloud of worries due to a possible war with Iraq has hung over the economy of the euro zone and the wider EU, likely to force changes to Commission forecasts made late last year.
"Since our November forecasts downside risks have materialised, so I think we are looking for a downward revision but we have to come up with the new figures," Commission Economic and Monetary Affairs spokesman Mr Gerassimos Thomas told a news conference.
He was speaking before a meeting of euro zone finance ministers today, but said he did not think a new forecast would be made at those talks.
Mr Thomas also said ministers would discuss the geo-political uncertainty created by fears of a war, but he was unsure whether any hard and fast conclusions would be made.
He said that any response by governments would have to be in the framework of current policy, meaning that the EU's budget rules would have to respected.
As war fears have mounted, speculation has also increased that conflict could be one reason for states to have more leeway in respecting those rules.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in a magazine interview last week that Germany could again break the EU deficit cap of 3 per cent of GDP if war broke out.
But Sweden's finance minister, Mr Bosse Ringholm, said war in Iraq would not justify easing the Stability and Growth Pact on budget discipline.