If there's one place we're going to see a marked improvement in European growth this year it's going to be Germany
Evidence of that is going to come from stories like manufacturing employment, which hit a record high in 2014. Reuters report that the 57k rise in employment last year took total employment in the sector to the highest since 2005 at 5.3 million
The German DIHK Chamber of Commerce expects the trend to continue thanks to "booming exports"
Both the Bundesbank and German government are getting bullish for growth early in the year and one of the big cogs in the growth wheel will be if Russian sanctions get lifted over the ongoing Ukraine peace talks. If that happens and Germany can get back to trading fully with Russia, then we should see some decent numbers from Ze Germans. That will also mean that the eurozone numbers will be dragged up by them too.
We're still in "if's, but's and maybe's" mode but should we start to see a decent, broad, sustained growth pickup in Europe we could see the mother of all squeezes on the euro.
The big German machine is powering up
