Off the Charts: Europe’s Consumers Are Pointing the Way Down

Germany is the dominant member of the group of countries doing well, although a few smaller countries, including Austria and Estonia, are also posting good results.

In the middle group are countries that are less competitive and showing signs of stress, but still growing. In the bottom group are countries with major problems. Some are showing more signs of growth than others — Ireland this week reported surprisingly good industrial production figures — but consumers are suffering in all of them.

Statistics on imports help show which countries are in which group.

In all European countries — and virtually all other countries around the world as well — trade levels plunged after the credit crisis intensified with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. Trade financing became hard to get for many exporters, and customers slashed orders out of fears that the recession would get much worse or that they would be unable to finance the purchases.

Trade volumes recovered after credit conditions eased, and many economies began growing again. That trend is continuing for countries whose economies are in decent shape, but in others, the recovery in trade appears to be over. This time, the issue is often a simple one: the buyers cannot afford what they used to buy.

The accompanying charts show changes in imports at eight members of the euro zone — the largest ones and the ones that have been forced to seek bailouts.

The charts are based on three-month averages of seasonally adjusted imports, and show the change in levels from the average of June through August 2008, just before the Lehman collapse.

Germany stands out because its imports are now well above the precrisis levels, and are continuing to rise. In most of the other countries, the trend line has turned down over the last few months. This week, even Germany reported a very small decline in imports from July to August, although the three-month average did continue to rise.

Greece also stands out, but for the opposite reason. There, austerity is taking its toll and imports are plunging. They totaled just 2.9 billion euros in August, on a seasonally adjusted basis. That was nearly half a billion less than the July figure and the lowest figure for any month since 2002. Before the credit crisis hit, Greece was averaging imports of more than 5 billion euros a month.

The good news for Greece is that its exports are rising rapidly, but that increase is off a very low base and the country continues to run large trade deficits.

In both France and Italy, imports have returned to precrisis levels, and the Netherlands has done a little better. But in Ireland, Portugal and Spain, imports are well below the levels of 2008 and are again falling.

Floyd Norris comments on finance and the economy at nytimes.com/economix.

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