Finally, some good news out of Europe.

In April, Eurostat reports, the European Union had a trade surplus with “the rest of the world” of 14.9 billion euro. This was up 3.3 billion from the same month last year.

The report from Eurostat also looked at the first-quarter trade in goods balance:

The EU27 trade surplus increased with the USA (+ 22.3 bn euro in January – March 2013 compared with + 18.4 bn in January – March 2012) , Switzerland (+ 19.2 bn compared with + 11.4 bn) and Turkey (+ 6.5 bn compared with + 5.7 bn).

The EU27 trade deficit declined with China ( – 33.6 bn compared with – 34.2 bn) , Russia (- 25.7 bn compared with – 27.0 bn) , Norway ( – 10.7 bn compared with – 1 5 .7 bn) and Japan ( – 0.9 bn compared with -3.4 bn).

Concerning the total trade of Member States, the largest surplus was observed in Germany (+ 49.3 bn euro in January – March 2013 ), followed by the Netherlands (+ 15.1 bn) and Ireland (+ 8.9 bn). The United Kingdom ( – 24.1 bn) registered the largest deficit, followed by France ( – 20.1 bn) , Greece ( – 5.3 bn) and Spain ( – 4 .7 bn).

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