MOSCOW, October 19 (RIA Novosti) – The eurozone is not facing another fiscal downturn, however, an effort to develop economic reforms is needed, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Sunday.
"I don't think we are going to come back to recession. The forecasts of European Commission, IMF [International Monetary Fund] and OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] show recovery weaker than anticipated, but not recession. We are going to have positive [economic] growth," Barroso said on BBC's Andrew Marr show.
"Of course ... we should avoid any kind of complacency, we should now push for stricter reforms to make our economies more attractive," he added.
BBC's Marr noted that Barroso's ten-year presidency at the European Commission coincided with financial crisis in Europe, as many investors fled the euro zone over recession fears.
Economic growth in the eurozone almost came to a standstill earlier this year, partially due to the crisis inherited from the south of Europe, where some countries' economies were severely affected by recession, and partially due to low prospective growth nearly everywhere in the eurozone.
