VIENNA (Reuters) - The danger of an uneven economic recovery in Europe has fallen despite the patchy nature of the upturn that remains worrying, European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said on Monday.
"One cannot exclude the possibility of a slowdown in recovery, but I think that the risks of an L-shaped or W-shaped development have decreased," he said in the text of an address prepared for a conference.
Germany and export-dependent smaller euro zone countries are leading the way, while some peripheral countries lag, he said.
"Although this divergence is of course worrisome, we should not immobilize ourselves by focusing on the problematic cases alone," he said, noting the performance of the EU economy on average was good both during and after the crisis.
(Reporting by Paul Carrel and Michael Shields)
