The 16-nation eurozone economy shrank in the second quarter by a greater margin than initially thought, revised official EU statistics showed yesterday.

However, while the picture was also matched across the 27-nation European Union as a whole, Ireland's battered economy produced a surprise result by returning to break-even point after steep contraction.

In what will come as a relief to political leaders seeking on Wednesday to pressure Prague into signing the long-delayed Lisbon Treaty, the Czech Republic achieved 0.1 per cent growth after shrinking by a massive 4.8 percent in the first quarter of 2009.

Greece, Poland and Portugal also returned to growth, with the second estimate for Britain showing a slight improvement at 0.6 per cent contraction compared to initial figures predicting 0.7 per cent.

Across the eurozone as a whole, gross domestic product was down by 0.2 per cent between April and June of this year compared to the first quarter, double the initial estimate given by the EU's Eurostat agency. The annual rate of decline was 4.8 per cent, against a first estimate of 4.7 per cent.

That was the fifth quarter running of falling economic output for the area but still marked a huge improvement on the record 2.5 per cent plunge in the first three months of the year.

Given record unemployment running to more than 15 million people, the data tempers somewhat optimism that Europe's worst post-war recession is coming to an early end.

For the entire 27-nation EU, GDP fell 0.3 per cent in the second quarter, slightly worse than the 0.2 per cent estimate first given. The annual rate of decline was 4.8 per cent.

Exports fell by 1.5 per cent in the eurozone and 1.7 per cent across the EU, again worse than anticipated.

Domestic consumption rose 0.1 per cent in the eurozone, a slight drop from the previously-released data but still a sharp improvement after a slide of 0.5 per cent in the first quarter.