Eurozone's longest-ever recession comes to an end

BRUSSELS: Official figures confirm that the recession in the eurozone came to an end in the second quarter of the year. 

Eurostat, the European Union's statistics office, says the 17 European Union countries that use the eurozone saw their collective economic output grow by 0.3% in the April to June period from the previous quarter. 

That was moderately better than the 0.2% anticipated in the markets, largely because of solid economic growth of 0.7% in Germany and a surprisingly strong 0.5% bounce-back in France.