The German central bank or Bundesbank supplied its counterpart in Cyprus with banknotes as the island's banks reopened Thursday after an unprecedented 12-day lockdown, financial sources said. "The operation was led by the Bundesbank and the transportation of the notes was coordinated by the European Central Bank," one of the sources told AFP. Another source said that only one national central bank was involved in the operation. According to the business daily Handelsblatt, five billion euros ($6.4 billion) worth of banknotes were flown to Cyprus in a Lufthansa jet.

The French economy, the eurozone's second biggest, contracted by 0.3 percent late last year and business activity was flat for 2012 as a whole as household purchasing power declined for the first time since 1984, official data showed on Wednesday. The fourth-quarter decline in gross domestic product (GDP) followed a slight increase of 0.2 percent in the three months from July through September, the national statistics institute Insee said as it revised the third-quarter figure up slightly from a previous estimation of 0.1 percent.

Spain will seek deeper into recession this year and the unemployment rate, which is already at a record 26 percent, will rise further as it continues to feel the fallout of the collapse of a property bubble, the central bank said Tuesday. The Spanish economy, the eurozone's fourth largest after Germany, France and Italy, will shrink by 1.5 percent this year, after contracting 1.4 percent last year, before posting a "modest rebound" in 2014 with growth of 0.6 percent as private demand recovers, the Bank of Spain said in its latest bulletin.

The euro pulled up against the dollar Friday amid expectations that an EU-IMF rescue deal for Cyprus would be formulated this weekend to avoid a meltdown of the country's banks next week. The euro picked up nearly one cent from Thursday's rout to trade, at 2100 GMT, at $1.2986. The euro added slightly on the yen, to 122.72 yen from 122.34 yen, while the dollar was lower on the Japanese currency, at 94.46 yen from 94.86 yen.