Germany helped the euro area avoid its second recession in three years as growth in the region’s largest economy offset contractions in peripheral countries. Gross domestic product in the 17-nation euro region stagnated in the latest quarter compared with the prior three months, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a 0.2 percent contraction. From a year earlier, euro-area GDP also was unchanged in the first quarter. Germany’s expansion, stronger than economists had forecast, is helping offset declining GDP in the euro area’s ... (full story)