More anxieties about Europe’s battered economies

• TAX-COLLECTORS and customs officers in Greece have already walked out in protest against planned austerity measures by the government. On Wednesday February 10th it will be the turn of civil servants, doctors and other state workers. A much bigger strike is expected later in the month and past experience suggests that protests could turn nasty. Yet unless Greece gets a grip on its public finances, the government will struggle to finance its loans. Similar anxieties are emerging elsewhere in Europe.

• LACKLUSTRE economic performances in Germany and Italy in the last quarter of 2009 are likely to prove a drag on the performance of the euro area as a whole. Figures released on Friday February 12th may show that the two big economies hardly grew at all in the fourth quarter, despite the euro area’s pulling out of recession in the previous three-month period. Spain, another large economy in the region, is probably still stuck in recession. Job losses and weak consumer spending may put a dampener on the euro area’s recovery, which Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank, has said is set to be modest and bumpy this year. …