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Episode details

World Service,31 Jul 2020,26 mins

Eurozone suffers deepest contraction on record

World Business Report

Available for over a year

Spain, France and Italy suffer double-digit falls in economic output due to the pandemic. We get the picture from Italy, where the economy contracted 12.4% between April and June, from Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli, Milan correspondent for the Financial Times. And Luca Leoni, who runs two hotels in Lombardy, in northern Italy, tells us what it's like to run a business in the current climate. Also in the programme, as International Airlines Group, which owns British Airways and Spain's Iberia reveals a $4.5bn loss in the first six months of the year, its chief executive Willie Walsh discusses the magnitude of the crisis facing aviation. Plus, we hear about a row that has broken out between the grape growers of France's Champagne region, and the companies that buy the crop, from Thibaut Le Mailloux, of the official Champagne Committee. (Picture: A waiter serving at a Paris restaurant. Picture credit: Getty Images.)

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