http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ng-report.html
Britain will suffer the steepest economic slump of any major European economy this year, the European Commission has warned.
Output will tumble 2.8 per cent in 2009, more than twice the Treasury’s forecasts, it said in a damning report.
That compares with a decline of 1.9 per cent across the euro area, the Commission said in its ‘Interim Forecasts’.
Partly as a result, UK government debt will skyrocket to 72 per cent of the economy by next year – or over £1trillion.
Of the western European economies, only Ireland will suffer a deeper recession, with its output tumbling by 5 per cent.
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are the other three laggards, each contracting by at least 4 per cent.
The figures added to a litany of dismal news for Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the day he announced a new bank rescue.
The Commission warned that loans will still be hard to come by and house prices will fall further - having already tumbled 18 per cent over the past year.
The Commission said: ‘The ongoing scarcity of credit and further residential property price falls will constrain growth further in 2009.
‘Output is likely to show only a modest recovery in 2010.’
Britain’s waning growth will trigger damaging gains in unemployment, which the Commission expects to hit 8.2 per cent this year – or 2.5million people.
It would have been worse under the Tories mind.
Britain will suffer the steepest economic slump of any major European economy this year, the European Commission has warned.
Output will tumble 2.8 per cent in 2009, more than twice the Treasury’s forecasts, it said in a damning report.
That compares with a decline of 1.9 per cent across the euro area, the Commission said in its ‘Interim Forecasts’.
Partly as a result, UK government debt will skyrocket to 72 per cent of the economy by next year – or over £1trillion.
Of the western European economies, only Ireland will suffer a deeper recession, with its output tumbling by 5 per cent.
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are the other three laggards, each contracting by at least 4 per cent.
The figures added to a litany of dismal news for Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the day he announced a new bank rescue.
The Commission warned that loans will still be hard to come by and house prices will fall further - having already tumbled 18 per cent over the past year.
The Commission said: ‘The ongoing scarcity of credit and further residential property price falls will constrain growth further in 2009.
‘Output is likely to show only a modest recovery in 2010.’
Britain’s waning growth will trigger damaging gains in unemployment, which the Commission expects to hit 8.2 per cent this year – or 2.5million people.
It would have been worse under the Tories mind.
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