Eurozone sets bleak record of longest term in recession

"It’s pretty shocking data," said Simon Tilford, economist at the CER, a think tank. "The figures for Italy, Spain and France are very worrying ... There’s a very, very strong case for aggressive monetary relaxation across the eurozone now.""It would be an almost unequivocally good thing for Germany and the rest of the eurozone if we were to see a strong recovery in German domestic demand," said Mr Tilford. But he cautioned that there had been "false dawns" in Germany before with brittle investment demand and employees accepting wage restraint when companies expressed fear about the health of their export markets.