Eurozone economic growth slowed sharply to 0.4 percent in the third quarter from 1.0 percent in the second, data showed Thursday at a time of mounting financial turmoil in the 16-nation bloc. For the full 27-member European Union momentum edged up 0.5 percent, the statistics agency Eurostat said in a second estimate. The agency, in an initial assessment on November 12, had put third-quarter EU growth at 0.4 percent. The EU's executive commission warned last week that debt pressures threatened eurozone economic growth, which it said would decline to 1.5 percent next year from 1.7 percent in 2010 and then pick up to 1.8 percent in 2012. Earlier on Thursday the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn, warned that the debt crisis in Europe should not be underestimated. On Sunday, the European Union and the IMF announced an 85-billion-euro (111 billion dollar) bailout for eurozone member Ireland to shore up its banking sector and meet its debt obligations. The total figure includes a contribution from the Irish pension reserve fund. The move intensified speculation that Ireland's fellow eurozone debt-ridden financial stragglers, Portugal and Spain, could also need a bailout in due course. "We should not underestimate the importance of this crisis which, in Ireland, is mostly coming from the banking sector," Strauss-Kahn told reporters after meeting Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi.

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