The EU's statistics agency Eurostat also said that unemployment in the 13 countries that use the euro dropped to a new low of 7.3 percent in February. The jobless rate stood at 7.4 percent in January.

The Netherlands had the lowest euro-zone unemployment rate with 3.5 percent, while provisional figures for France posted the highest with 8.8 percent.

Unemployment in Germany dropped from 7.6 percent in January to 7.1 percent in February.

The inflation estimate sees the first rise in prices in the euro-zone for this year, Eurostat said. Inflation in the euro-zone held stable at 1.8 percent in February.