Eurozone Economy Regains Size of 2008 but Remains Shaky

It’s been a long and tortuous journey, but the eurozone economy is finally back to the size it was before the global financial crisis.

The euro sculpture in front of the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, Germany, on July 31, 2012. AP Photo/Michael Probst

LONDON—It’s been a long and tortuous journey, but the eurozone economy is finally back to the size it was before the global financial crisis.

The 19-country currency union, which as a bloc is the world’s second-largest economy, enjoyed an unexpected acceleration in the first three months of the year, when it expanded by a quarterly rate of 0.6 percent, official figures showed Friday.

That’s twice the previous quarter’s rate and means the economy is now bigger than it was at the start of 2008, before the financial crisis triggered the deepest global recession since World War II.

False dawns have been common since the financial crisis and nowhere more so than in Europe.

— Alasdair Cavalla, senior economist, Centre for Economics and Business Research