BRUSSELS - Euro zone economic growth slowed sharply in the third quarter as expected, preliminary data showed on Monday, underlining expectations that the currency bloc will slide into a recession over the coming quarters.

The European Union's statistics office Eurostat estimated that gross domestic product in the 19 countries sharing the euro rose 0.2% quarter-on-quarter for a 2.1% year-on-year rise, as expected by economists polled by Reuters.

This compares with a 0.8% quarterly and 4.3% year-on-year growth in the April-June period, as the euro zone economy begins to feel the impact of soaring inflation, especially of energy prices after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the resulting jump in interest rates and continued supply chain problems.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, bucked the wider trend and reported a slight acceleration of quarterly growth in the third quarter to 0.3% from 0.1% in the second quarter, though its economy still decelerated in year-on-year terms.

Belgium, Latvia and Austria all already recorded a quarterly fall in GDP in the July-September period.

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski)