Industrial output (% change vs October 2000)

Belgium: -0.6% Finland: -6.1% France: -1.0% Germany: -3.9% Ireland: -5.8% Italy: -2.8% Luxembourg: +8.6% Netherlands: -5.4% Portugal: -1.0% Spain: +1.1% Data for Austria and Greece not available

Only Spain and Luxembourg registered a rise from September.

The slide follows a 0.7% shrinkage in September. Compared with October 2000, output was down 2.7%.

Economists had expected a fall, after numbers from France, Germany and Italy in recent weeks revealed a sharp deterioration in industrial performance there.

But even so, the decline was worse than they had expected, driven by a sharp downturn in output of consumer durable goods - the sector which includes cars.

Inflation moderating

The unexpected weakness coincided with confirmation from Eurostat of its estimate of inflation for November, which sank to 2.1% from 2.4% the month before.

The European Central Bank has a target of 2% for inflation across the 12-state Eurozone.

The raw price data caps a string of figures which suggest not only that inflation is under control, but that the slowdown gripping Europe is a long way from stoking it up again.

Even a slight upturn in Germany's key Ifo business confidence index - to 84.9 from 84.7 in October - has not dampened the gloom among economists, who see any recovery as being at least six months away.

One size fits all?

Still, even within the inflation figures, there remains a wide variation of economic performance - the very factor on which the European Central Bank has sometimes relied to justify its inaction in the past.

Prices in France were just 1.3% and in Luxembourg 1.4% higher than in November last year, with Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Austria and Finland also recording inflation below the headline rate.

But Spain's rate was 2.8%, while Ireland's was 3.4%, Portugal's 4.1% and the Netherlands 4.8%.