BEELITZ, Germany, May 22 (Reuters) – Present a spear of finger-thick white asparagus to a German and watch her eyes light up.

Come spring-time each year Germans shed their typically sober attitude towards food to swoon over the freshness, the flavour and the girth of their asparagus.

This enthusiasm, fanned by a rising consumer appreciation of local, seasonal food, has transformed whole regions of the former East Germany in recent decades as farmers re-introduce a vegetable once viewed by the Communist authorities as a pretentious, expensive delicacy and a waste of labour and land.

Ernst-August Winkelmann grabs a handful of soil at his asparagus farm in Beelitz, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Berlin, and allows its sandy substance to run through his fingers.

“Beelitz asparagus is really very fine. Other German asparagus is good too, but the Beelitz crop is nuttier. The soil is sandier, it grows particularly fast and is extremely tender,” he said.

At the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 just 10 hectares of land in Beelitz were dedicated to asparagus production after a long decline.

In the late 1930s, 1,000 hectares were farmed for asparagus in the area but with the outbreak of World War Two Germany’s Nazi rulers decided asparagus was not rich enough in calories to justify such labour-intensive production.

BRUSSELS/BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany pulled the euro zone’s economy back from the brink of recession at the start of 2012 but stagnation in France and contraction in southern Europe underlined sharply differing fortunes in a bloc laboring under the effects of austerity.

Overall gross domestic product was unchanged in the first quarter following a dip at the end of last year, data showed on Tuesday, meaning that the euro zone missed slipping officially into recession by the narrowest possible margin.

But a surprisingly strong showing from Germany, whose exporters are helping it to cope with the euro zone crisis, flattered dismal performances in most of the other major economies.

“Germany is leading the bloc, but this doesn’t mean we will have a strong rebound. Austerity is not going away and southern European economies are really struggling,” said Mads Koefoed, a senior economist at Saxo Bank. “We are looking at stagnation to very mild growth in the year to come.”

Most euro zone governments are imposing austerity policies, often at great cost to their electorates and the chances of economic growth, hoping to counter the debt crisis by cutting their budget deficits. However, new French President Francois Hollande is heading to Berlin on Tuesday to argue for adding measures to boost growth to the formula.

Tuesday’s data showed a two-speed euro zone, with Italy’s recession deeper than feared and Greece suffering something akin to a depression.

“There’s a growing divergence in the euro zone, with particularly sharp contractions in the peripheral countries that need to do the most structural reforms, while Germany is the outperformer,” said Joost Beaumont at ABN Amro in Amsterdam.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Stellar exports powered Germany to surprisingly strong growth of 0.5 percent in the first quarter, cementing hopes that Europe’s largest economy can underpin the euro zone, though poor investor sentiment data warned of Berlin’s continued vulnerability.

Germany bounced back from a contraction of 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter, comfortably shaking off recession fears and beating even the highest forecast in a Reuters poll of 41 economists. Demand for its high quality goods, particularly from outside Europe, reached a record monthly level in March.

Preliminary data from the statistics office published on Tuesday also showed that growth compared with the same quarter a year earlier accelerated to 1.7 percent from 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter.

The consensus forecast was for growth of 0.1 percent on the quarter and 0.8 percent on the year.

“This is a very strong comeback. The decline in the fourth quarter was not the start of a recession but just an economic dip,” said Joerg Kraemer, an economist at Commerzbank.

Analysts praised Germany’s “Teflon economy”, which has so far evaded the fate of euro zone peers, not only due to its export performance but also helped by healthy domestic consumption in the country of 80 million people.

But they warned Germany could not remain immune to fresh turbulence sweeping through the single-currency bloc as Greek politicians fail to form a government and leaders struggle to agree stimulus measures to temper blistering austerity rules.

BRUSSELS/BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany pulled the euro zone’s economy back from the brink of recession at the start of 2012 but stagnation in France and contraction in southern Europe underlined sharply differing fortunes in a bloc laboring under the effects of austerity.

Overall gross domestic product was unchanged in the first quarter following a dip at the end of last year, data showed on Tuesday, meaning that the euro zone missed slipping officially into recession by the narrowest possible margin.

But a surprisingly strong showing from Germany, whose exporters are helping it to cope with the euro zone crisis, flattered dismal performances in most of the other major economies.

“Germany is leading the bloc, but this doesn’t mean we will have a strong rebound. Austerity is not going away and southern European economies are really struggling,” said Mads Koefoed, a senior economist at Saxo Bank. “We are looking at stagnation to very mild growth in the year to come.”

Most euro zone governments are imposing austerity policies, often at great cost to their electorates and the chances of economic growth, hoping to counter the debt crisis by cutting their budget deficits. However, new French President Francois Hollande is heading to Berlin on Tuesday to argue for adding measures to boost growth to the formula.

Tuesday’s data showed a two-speed euro zone, with Italy’s recession deeper than feared and Greece suffering something akin to a depression.

“There’s a growing divergence in the euro zone, with particularly sharp contractions in the peripheral countries that need to do the most structural reforms, while Germany is the outperformer,” said Joost Beaumont at ABN Amro in Amsterdam.

BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) – Germany’s economy confounded expectations by posting robust growth in the first quarter of the year while France could summon up none at all, data showed on Tuesday.

Gross domestic product in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, rose by 0.5 percent on the quarter, bouncing back from a 0.2 percent slide in the last three months of 2011. France’s economy stagnated, although it grew slightly at the end of last year.

The figure for the euro zone as whole, due at 05:00 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT), is forecast to show it shrank by 0.2 percent, following a 0.3 percent contraction in the last three months of 2011 – putting it back into recession – although Germany’s strong showing could give it a lift.

The divergent performance of the euro zone’s two largest economies will fuel an austerity versus growth debate in the currency bloc as it teeters on the edge of a new crisis, again centered on Greece.

Later on Tuesday, Francois Hollande will be sworn in as French president and hot-foot it to Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Hollande is demanding new growth-boosting measures for Europe. Merkel has not disagreed in principle but Berlin is unlikely to agree to anything that will require extra spending that pushes government debt up again.

“This is a very strong comeback. The decline in the fourth quarter was not the start of a recession but just an economic dip,” Joerg Kraemer, economist at Commerzbank, said of the German figures.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives were in danger of being ousted from power in another German state on Sunday after the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) said they wanted to form a three-way coalition with two smaller centre-left parties.

The Christian Democrats’ (CDU) vote fell to 31 percent, their worst result in the state since 1950, but they were still just the largest party in the rural region between the Baltic and North Seas, a projection by Germany’s ARD TV network showed.

The SPD, which won 29.9 percent in the northernmost state, said it wanted to form a coalition with the Greens and South Schleswig Party (SSW) that represents the Danish majority. The three parties would have 35 seats in the 69-seat state assembly.

Merkel’s conservatives have been voted out of power in three states in the last two years. If knocked out in the traditionally conservative region of Schleswig-Holstein the CDU would rule just seven of Germany’s 16 states ahead of the 2013 federal election, when Merkel is seeking a third term.

“She’ll probably lose another state premier and this will make things harder for her re-election campaign,” said Gero Neugebauer, political scientist at Berlin’s Free University.

“She can’t be satisfied about the performance of her centre-right coalition.”

The chancellor’s resolute stance through the drama of the euro zone crisis has left her personal popularity intact. But her national centre-right coalition has looked in jeopardy after a slump support for her junior coalition partners, the Free Democrats (FDP).

BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives stood neck-and-neck with the rival Social Democrats (SPD) in an election in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, projections showed on Sunday, pointing to weeks of tough coalition talks to form a government.

German TV network ARD projected Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) on 30.6 percent, their worst result in the state since 1950, and the SPD on 29.9 percent based on exit polls after the voting stations closed at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT). The result would give both parties 22 seats in the 69-seat assembly.

The unclear outcome in the northern state of 2.8 million people bordering Denmark, means a large number of coalition options possible, including a “grand coalition” of the two big parties or three-way governments involving smaller parties.

Perhaps the most likely of those is what Germans have dubbed a “Danish traffic light” coalition of the SPD, Greens and the South Schleswig Party (SSW), representing the state’s Danish minority.

“This is our goal,” SPD lead candidate Torsten Albig told German public television. “If that doesn’t work we’ll see what other coalitions are possible.”

The environmentalist Greens stood at 13.6 percent, and the unconventional Pirates, who stormed onto the political scene last year, polled 8.1 percent, enough to enter their third straight regional assembly.

Merkel’s resolute stance through the dramas of the euro zone crisis has left her personal popularity intact. But her national centre-right coalition has looked in jeopardy after a slump in public support for her junior coalition partners, the Free Democrats (FDP), due to their infighting and prickly leaders.

BERLIN, May 6 (Reuters) – Angela Merkel’s conservatives face a photo-finish state vote in Germany’s north on Sunday, knowing that losing power in Schleswig-Holstein could give vital momentum to the opposition and dent the chancellor’s 2013 re-election hopes.

Merkel’s resolute stance through the dramas of the euro zone crisis has left her personal popularity intact. But her national centre-right coalition is in jeopardy after a slump in public support for her junior coalition partners, the Free Democrats (FDP), due to their infighting and prickly leaders.

To have any chance of fulfilling her hopes for a third-term in power, the chancellor must find new allies for her Christian Democrats (CDU) and hope a dismal run at regional level for both her party and the FDP is at an end.

Schleswig-Holstein’s voters are almost certain to eject the CDU-FDP alliance that has run Schleswig-Holstein since 2009.

The most likely outcomes are a three-way coalition dubbed the “Danish traffic light” between the opposition Social Democrats SPD, Greens and the South Schleswig Party (SSW), representing the Danish minority, or a “grand coalition” of the two largest parties – CDU and SPD.

The question is whether the CDU can remain the largest party in the largely rural state of 2.8 million people on the Danish border and cling to power in a different coalition.

That would give the party vital second wind, at a sensitive time for the chancellor. She looks likely to lose her ally Nicolas Sarkozy in France’s presidential vote on Sunday to Francois Hollande, who has pledged to try and temper the German-led austerity drive.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A Kremlin threat to launch pre-emptive strikes on a planned NATO missile defence system in Europe is unjustified as the system poses no threat to Russia’s security, the head of the Atlantic alliance said on Friday.

NATO has long insisted that the anti-missile shield it is developing is aimed at protecting member states from a possible Iranian attack, but Russia says it fears the system could undermine the effectiveness of its own nuclear arsenal.

In a stark warning head of Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency next week, Russia’s military chief-of-staff said on Thursday that Moscow could carry out pre-emptive strikes on NATO missile defence installations.

“These statements are unjustified,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Berlin after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Our missile defence system is not technically designed to threaten Russia in any way and we have provided that information to the Russians. Politically, we don’t have any intention to attack Russia,” he added.

NATO has invited Russia to cooperate on missile defence and they have shared defence interests, Rasmussen said, adding that NATO and Moscow had signed a pact 15 years ago pledging they would not use force against one another.

“The best way for the Russians to see with their own eyes that our system is not directed against them would be to cooperate actively,” he said.