BRUSSELS (AFP) -- The eurozone logged zero growth in the first three months of the year, the EU said Tuesday, narrowly avoiding recession after a 0.3-percent contraction in the last quarter of 2011.

The estimate from the bloc's statistics agency Eurostat surprised analysts who had predicted a 0.2-percent decline in economic output across the 17-nation currency area from January to March.

The figure, to be confirmed June 6, provides some respite for policy-makers on the day German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet new French President Francois Hollande to discuss ways to jump-start anaemic growth.

Hollande throughout his election campaign called for a German-inspired treaty on strict fiscal discipline to be widened to include measures likely to boost medium-term economic output.

"The region remains heavily reliant on Germany," said London-based economist Jennifer McKeown of Capital Economics after Berlin powered forward with a better-than-expected 0.5-percent uplift.

France stagnated while Italy and Spain contracted by 0.8 percent and 0.3 percent respectively. The Netherlands saw its economy shrink by 0.2 percent.

McKeown said things "will only get worse" with the eurozone periphery mired in recession and German exports faltering.

"Policymakers' talk of growth seems unlikely to amount to anything in the foreseeable future," she said, warning that "the danger of a euro-zone break-up is as great as ever."

Martin van Vliet of Dutch-based ING Bank said that with "no sign of a strong, sustained economic bounceback on the horizon," a return to negative territory remained a risk for the current quarter.

"A further escalation of the debt crisis, let alone a Greek euro exit, could well derail the envisaged recovery," he underlined.

London-based IHS Global Insight's Howard Archer summed up: "There seems a compelling case for the European Central Bank to cut interest rates from the current level of 1.0 percent.

"But we suspect that the bank will remain reluctant to do so unless major downside risks to the eurozone outlook materialise."

Eurostat said the European Union as a whole, which also includes big non-euro states Britain and Poland, recorded 0.1 percent growth over the first three months of 2012, after a 0.3 percent contraction the previous quarter.

For both the eurozone and the EU, the numbers marked a significant reverse compared to one year earlier, when they posted 0.7 percent and 0.8 percent growth respectively.