Recession over, but crisis unresolved

While the second quarter’s 0.3% expansion in euro-zone GDP may partly have reflected temporary factors, there seems little reason to doubt that the region’s record-long recession is finally at an end. But with the improvement driven largely by the relatively healthy core economies and few persuasive signs of a narrowing of the imbalances inside the currency union, the economic and fiscal crisis in the peripheral countries remains decidedly unresolved.