Euro zone: confirmation of a strong upturn in growth in the second quarter

The European economy returned to strong growth in the second quarter of the year, benefiting from progress in vaccination against Covid-19 and a gradual lifting of health restrictions, according to figures released Tuesday by Eurostat, confirming their previous estimate.

The gross domestic product (GDP) of the euro zone rebounded by 2% in the second quarter compared to the previous one, after two consecutive quarterly declines, announced the European statistics office, in line with its first estimate unveiled at the end of July.

Read also: The economic recovery will be slow and heterogeneous in the euro zone

For the European Union as a whole, the increase reached 1.9%.

Among the large countries, France recorded the worst performance (+ 0.9%), behind Spain (+ 2.8%), Italy (+ 2.7%) and Germany (+1 , 5%).

Portugal saw its GDP soar by 4.9%.

With this exceptional performance, the 19 countries sharing the single currency did better than the United States (+ 1.6%) and China (+ 1.3%).

In the first quarter, the euro zone's GDP fell by 0.3%, after a contraction of 0.6% over the last three months of 2020. Experts expected this strong rebound over the period April-June, thanks to the gradual lifting of health restrictions which had slowed down activity, particularly in transport, hotels and restaurants and tourism.

The improvement in growth had repercussions on the job market.

According to Eurostat, the number of people in employment increased by 0.5% in the euro area and by 0.6% in the EU in April-June compared to the previous quarter, after a contraction of 0.2% in January March.

Over one year, employment increased by 1.8% in the euro zone in the second quarter.

Read also: 424 billion euros, the astronomical bill of Covid-19 for France

However, the European economy remains 3% below its level before the pandemic. As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to haunt the continent, against the backdrop of the spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus, GDP should return to its pre-crisis level in the last quarter of 2021, the European Commission announced in early July. The countries of the south, the most affected by the collapse of tourism caused by the pandemic, will even have to wait until the second half of 2022. The United States has already reached this goal in the spring and China by the end of last year .