20 Jun 2013 by Jim Fickett.
Today Eurostat reported construction spending through April. It is odd that government statistics agencies follow the style of the press and concentrate on the latest minute change in economic series, when they certainly have the expertise to know that the monthly change is mostly noise. Eurostat heads their article, “Euro area production in construction up by 2.0%”. The 2.0% increase is unimportant. When one looks at the longer history of the series it is clear that, for now at least, there is no evidence for a break in the downward trend.
More generally, I have not yet seen any substantial evidence that the European recession is near the end.