Eurozone economic sentiment at highest since August 2007, EC says

Economic confidence within the single currency bloc rose back to its highest level since August 2007, just before the start of the last financial crisis.

The European Commission's economic sentiment index rose from 109.2 in May to 111.1 for June.

Both industrial firms and consumers were more optimistic, according to the EC.

A gauge for the former improved from a reading of 2.8 to 4.5 (consensus: 2.8) while that for the latter rose from -3.3 to -1.3 (consensus: -1.3).

Separate gauges for services, retail trade and construction contained in the same report all improved as well.

Data for the UK also revealed an improvement, albeit it was a bit spottier than in many countries.

The ESI for the UK improved from 108.2 in May to 109.3 for June, as its industrial confidence gauge jumped from 9.9 to 13.0.

A subindex for confidence levels in British construction fared even better, rising from -11.9 to -2.2.

However, subindices linked to services, the consumer and retail trade were all weaker, with the last of those experiencing the largest fall, from 4.3 to -3.8.

Commenting on the survey results, Florian Hense at Berenberg said: "All countries, sectors and pillars of demand are driving the upswing. That makes the upswing all the more resilient. It would probably even weather a hasty withdrawal of monetary accommodation. But this is not to come anyway since the ECB is simply in no hurry to do that despite all the noise in recent days."