With seasonally adjusted love

By P.W. | LONDON

FOR Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), today’s Valentine’s card from Eurostat’s numbercrunchers was covered with kisses—of the kind that central bankers and economists like to get anyway. The recovery, barely perceptible in the third quarter when output rose by just 0.1%, has steamed ahead (by euro-zone standards) to 0.3% in the last three months of 2013. That’s a little faster than the consensus forecast of 0.2% and the same as in the second quarter of 2013, when growth returned after a double-dip recession that lasted longer than the first plunge caused by the financial crisis.

The pick-up in pace will be welcome at the ECB because the central bank is close to having exhausted its conventional resources in stimulating the economy, having lowered its key lending rate to just 0.25% in November. That’s a worry as inflation subsides, kindling concern that the euro zone may slip into Japanese-style deflation, which would exacerbate debt burdens, both private and public. A burgeoning recovery is the best antidote and would avoid the bank’s governing council having to resort to more radical and riskier forms of stimulus, such as introducing negative interest rates (on deposits made by banks at the ECB).

The picture across the 18 countries that share the euro is not wholly sunny. Output continues to shrink in Cyprus, the fifth country that had to be rescued, nearly a year ago: GDP was down by 1%. It is also falling far to the north—in Finland, by 0.8%, and in Estonia, by 0.1%.

But these areas of low pressure are in small economies and elsewhere the glass is rising. The strengthening in the recovery was bolstered by the currency club’s two heavyweights, Germany and France, which together make up about half of euro-zone GDP. They grew by 0.4% and 0.3% respectively, in both cases a bit stronger than expected. The report for France dispelled fears that it might stumble into another recession after recording a minuscule fall in output in the third quarter (which left GDP unchanged for all but the statistically small-minded).

Together with core strength there was peripheral springiness. Spain, the club’s fourth-biggest economy, grew in line with the euro area, by 0.3%, though this still left its GDP a little lower than in late 2012. Portuguese growth of 0.5% was stronger than its Iberian neighbour and thanks to an earlier and punchier start to its recovery, its GDP is now 1.6% higher than in the last quarter of 2012.

The most disappointing figures were those for Italy, whose economy barely scraped itself off the floor with growth of just 0.1%, leaving GDP 0.8% lower than in late 2012. The lacklustre performance of the euro zone’s third-biggest economy not just in recent years but for more than a decade helps to explain why Italians are about to have their fourth prime minister in just over two years. Matteo Renzi, the youthful mayor of Florence who is poised to take over from Enrico Letta, will have to be a miracle worker to find a cure for the Italian disease.

Still, the overall figures are encouraging. The euro-zone is currently expected to grow by just 1% in 2014. That may turn out to be too gloomy.