Greece's economy is growing far faster than most Eurozone countries, including Germany, France and Italy, according to new figures.
The Eurozone as a whole saw growth slow from 0.4 per cent to 0.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2015, with the French economy completely stagnating and the Italian economy falling short of expectations.
Greece, which spent the quarter tied up in emergency debt negotiations with the rest of the continent and which saw its banks close for a few weeks, actually reported one of the highest growth rates around: 0.8 per cent.
Only Spain, Latvia and Poland grew more last quarter. Germany grew 0.4 per cent as was expected.
Finland, which was one of the loudest voices against offering Greece a new bailout deal, was the only country in the Eurozone to contract last quarter as its recession continued apace.
The big concern, however, is what's happening in France.
With zero growth last quarter due to issues around consumer spending, the French economic recovery is sputtering along and it doesn't look encouraging.
The country was expected to grow 0.2 per cent, having advanced 0.7 per cent the previous quarter — a figure that was revised upwards.
(Eurostat)
Year-on-year, the French economy grew by 1 per cent, less than the 1.1 per cent forecast. Considering this is the second largest economy on the continent, that could be a problem.
That said, experts do see it recovering, just far slower than President Hollande would like.
As Germany kept up its with its economic expectations, growing 0.4 per cent just as it did last quarter, Italy missed its by a decimal point.
The third largest economy in the Eurozone grew by 0.3 per cent instead of the 0.4 expected. It has revised its end-of-year projections to 0.7 per cent, which - though not very high - is better than the stagnation and recession of the past three years.
