The EUR/JPY cross rate was trading between 133.68 and 133.75 yen per euro on Monday, after Japan's economic and fiscal policy minister, Akira Amari, in a surprising move, told Japan Broadcasting Corp. NHK in an interview on Sunday that Japan’s revised gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the July to September quarter will probably be zero and the economy will grow positive thereafter. The Cabinet Office is scheduled to release the revised GDP data for July to September on Tuesday. A Reuters poll of analysts expect Japan's third-quarter economic data to show annualized growth of 0.1%.

In mid-November, the Cabinet Office of Japan released the initial estimate of the third-quarter GDP that shrank at an annualized pace of 0.8% in the July-September period from the previous quarter, following a revised 0.7% contraction in the second-quarter. After two consecutive quarterly contractions, Japan is technically considered to be in recession, the second recession in two years. Business investment was weak and inventories are shrinking, as Japanese companies are holding back on spending and production due to slow growth in China and a weak global outlook. 

The yen has been strengthening against the euro since the end of October, as the Bank of Japan (BOJ) declined to step up its monetary stimulus despite a mixed bag of economic data. The Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications of Japan said in late November that the unemployment rate dipped in October to 3.1%, a 20-year low, compared with 3.4% in September. Despite the lowest unemployment level since July 1995, Japan’s average income and consumer spending fell 0.9% and 2.4%, respectively, on a year-on-year basis, while Japan’s core inflation excluding volatile food prices was down 0.1% for the third month in a row.

There are some signs of gradual economic recovery as the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan saw a modest uptick in Japan’s retail sales and factory output in October, which were up 1.8% and 1.4%, respectively, on a year-on-year basis. A Reuters poll of analysts had expected retail sales and factory output to come in at 1.9% and 1.4%, respectively.

The EUR/JPY cross rate surged 2.55% to close at the 200-day moving average or 134.14 yen per euro on Thursday, after the European Central Bank (ECB) announced at its Governing Council meeting in Frankfurt that they would cut the overnight deposit rate to minus 0.3% from minus 0.2%, and leave its key lending rate unchanged at 0.05%. The ECB also said it decided to extend purchases of government bonds and other assets from the September 2016 target date through at least March 2017. The markets had expected the ECB to drop the overnight rate to minus 0.4% and the key lending rate to zero from 0.05%, as well as to expand its 1.1 trillion euro bond-buying program by 360 billion euros.

The ECB may be cautious about expanding their bond-buying program, as the bank has been hit by fresh lawsuits from German eurosceptic politicians over its vast bond-buying program last month and the eurozone’s unemployment rate is on the decline. Eurostat said on Tuesday that the eurozone's unemployment rate fell to a seasonally adjusted 10.7% in October from 10.8% a month earlier. This is the lowest rate recorded in the euro-area since January 2012. 

Technically, the EUR/JPY cross rate could break out if the third-quarter revised GDP figures disappoint the markets. The near-term key technical resistances are at 134.67 yen per euro, or the 100-day moving average, and 136.63 yen per euro, or the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level. If the revised GDP figures come in better than expectations, the cross rate could pull back to the near-term supports at 132.69 yen per euro and about 132 yen per euro, or the trendline support of the symmetrical triangle.