Mario Draghi, the ECB president, has said he would look past energy price fluctuations until underlying inflation picked up in a “convincing” way

The eurozone bounced back to life at the end of last year on all the three economic measures that have bedevilled the single currency bloc.

Growth surged at a pace not bettered since early 2015, inflation caught up close to the central bank’s target rate and unemployment dropped to a seven-year low.

The news masked divergences between member states, but was widely welcomed as a sign that the stuttering recovery of recent years is gathering momentum. “The strong growth print is obviously a good sign,” Fabio Balboni, European economist at HSBC, said.

Eurostat, the European Commission’s statistical office, said that growth for the final three months of 2016 was 0.5 per cent, up from 0.4 per cent the previous quarter and taking annual GDP growth