Europe's economy recovers from long illness

After years of stagnation caused by the euro crisis, economic growth is bouncing back in Europe.

"Europe is no longer the sick man of the world economy," says Jana Randow on Bloomberg. After years of stagnation caused by the euro crisis, growth is bouncing back. GDP rose by another 0.6% in the third quarter, reflecting an annual pace of 2.5% the quickest in six years and eclipsing the US and UK's 2.3% and 1.6% respectively. The recovery has spread to the weaker states in the south of the bloc, with Italy managing its joint-fastest quarter in seven years, a gain of 0.5%.

There is plenty of scope for more. Business investment has finally returned to 2008 levels. Surveys remain encouraging, with the bloc's Economic Sentiment Indicator, which tracks both consumer and business confidence, at a 16-year high. It helps that global GDP growth "has finally synchronised across almost all regions and is also rising", as James Rutherford of Hermes Investment Management notes. The eurozone is far more export-dependent than Britain or America sales abroad comprise roughly 45% of GDP.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.