The Eurozone economy will fall into a deeper recession this year than initially thought, and the recovery in 2021 will be less robust, according to an updated economic forecast released by the European Commission on Tuesday, EDNews.net reports citing Deutsche Welle.
The revised forecast predicts the economy of the 19 nations that use the euro will shrink 8.7% in 2020 before recovering by 6.1% next year.
For the 27 countries that comprise the EU, a downturn of 8.3% is expected in 2020, before growing 5.8% in 2021.
This means that in 2021 Europe will still be worse off than before the global outbreak of COVID-19 forced nations around the globe into lockdowns that drastically reduced commerce.
In May, the Commission had predicted an overall downturn of 7.7% in 2020 and a rebound of 6.3% next year.
"The economic impact of the lockdown is more severe than we initially expected," said Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis in a statement released with the updated forecasts.