Second Recession in Four Years for Europe

The euro zone’s GDP fell again in the third quarter, with a .1 drop coming after the second quarter’s .2 percent slide. Five euro zone countries have contracted so much that they have either requested or received aid from their richer neighbors. The two largest European economies, Germany and France, both had quarterly growth of .2 percent while Italy and Spain both contracted. Smaller, peripheral countries have been in recession for much longer: Greece since 2008 and Portugal for the last two years.