Europe's recession has either come to an end, or it's about to.

It's clear from the data, that across key economies, a weak recovery is in place.

This morning we got French manufacturing output hitting its highest level in over 2 years.

The Flash PMI report out of Germany — Europe's Engine — was much stronger than expected, and its manufacturing numbers downright exploded higher.

These datapoints follow yesterday's Spanish GDP report, which indicated that in Q2 the economy shrunk by less than expected.

French industrial confidence is also on the rise.

Outside of the Eurozone, a recovery in the UK appears to be taking hold as well.

None of this will quickly alleviate the massively painful situation, especially the unemployment crisis.

And there are political problems in Spain and Portugal, and there's even fresh issues arising in Greece. The overall Eurozone problem isn't over. But this particular economic phase is coming to an end.

UPDATE: After writing this, Greg Fuzesi at JPMorgan had smilar thoughts, and even cought some more datapoints.

Economic data suggest that the Euro area economy is finally emerging from recession. The output index of the composite PMI jumped much more than expected (+1.7pts to 50.4), with the periphery also improving noticeably. In addition, the ECB bank lending survey showed banks tightening their lending standards at a slower pace (more on this in another email). In prior surveys, banks had remained cautious, mainly as they were still concerned about the economy and loan losses. If these concerns were already fading before today's PMI report, a faster improvement is possible in the coming months. This would give a significant boost to the economy.