Europe braced for some dismal figures

LONDON, Nov 9 (Reuters): After European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi got his colleagues to sign up to a target for pumping money into the ailing euro zone economy, a raft of GDP reports are likely to show just why more help may be needed.

The ECB did not add to its arsenal of measures last week and is expected to wait and see the take-up of a second round of cheap loans being offered to banks in December before considering anything further.

But after signs of discord, Draghi did secure unanimous agreement that the ECB balance sheet would "move towards the dimensions it had at the beginning of 2012" when it was about 1 trillion euros higher than now.

Economists seized on the word "towards", which casts some doubt over whether it amounts to a hard target. And the ability of the ECB to swallow its objections to full quantitative easing remains in question.

This week sees a raft of third quarter GDP reports from the euro zone, which are unlikely to make comfortable reading. Spain has already reported reasonable 0.5 per cent growth on the quarter and few if any of its peers are likely to better that.