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05 November 2020 "In recent weeks we have been faced with a resurgence of the pandemic and new containment measures have been adopted" and for this reason "the recovery has been interrupted".

Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said this during the presentation of the Commission's autumn economic forecasts.

"Growth is destined to stop in the fourth quarter, but to start rising again starting from the first quarter of 2021", added Gentiloni.

After the deepest recession in EU history in the first half of this year and a very strong recovery in the summer, the recovery in Europe has been halted due to the resurgence of COVID-19 cases.

Growth will return in 2021 but it will take two years before the European economy approaches the pre-pandemic level ", said the EU Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, presenting the Commission's autumn economic forecast." 'current context of very high uncertainty, national economic and fiscal policies must remain favorable, while NextGenerationEU must be finalized this year and effectively implemented in the first half of 2021 ", reiterated Gentiloni.



EU cuts recovery estimates, pre-pandemic target moves away


"Economic activity in Europe suffered a severe shock in the first half of the year and rebounded sharply in the third quarter thanks to the easing of containment measures. However, the resurgence of the pandemic in recent weeks is causing new interruptions ", and therefore" the growth projections over the forecast horizon are subject to an extremely high level of uncertainty and risks ": writes the EU Commission in the economic forecasts that see the GDP of the area euro contracted by 7.8% in 2020 before growing by 4.2% in 2021 and 3% in 2022. More moderate estimates compared to summer.

Brussels underlines that neither the euro area nor the EU will recover the pre-pandemic growth level in 2022.



Unemployment in Italy soars to 11.6% in 2021


n Italy "the extended coverage of wage integration schemes ( Redundancy fund) and a ban on layoffs until next year are likely to prevent large job losses in 2020. Temporary workers have borne the brunt of the labor market adjustment so far, but permanent ones are unlikely remain unharmed once the emergency measures end ", writes the EU Commission in the economic forecasts.

The unemployment rate will therefore rise to 11.6% next year, "with the majority of jobs lost in the services sector". 



Italy's deficit and debt will begin to decline in 2021


"After a sharp increase in 2020, deficit and debt will slow down in 2021 and 2022", writes the EU Commission in the economic forecasts that see the Italian deficit rise to 10.8% in 2020 and fall to 7 , 8% in 2021. For the EU, the response to the crisis, with the support of businesses and workers, had an impact of 5.5% on the expenditure front. The debt instead will rise "sharply" from 134.7% in 2019 to 159.6% in 2020 "before slowly falling to 159% in 2022 thanks to GDP growth".

Brussels also adds that "corporate liquidity measures, including state guarantees, involve some risks on debt projections".



Spain in the lead for drop in GDP, then Italy


Spain is the EU country with the most pronounced decline in GDP this year (-12.4%), followed by Italy (-9.9%), Croatia (-9.6%), France (-9.4%) and Portugal (-9.3%).

According to the new estimates of the EU Commission, Greece drops by 9%, Belgium by 8.4%, Germany by 5.6%.

The situation in Ireland is less serious, where GDP slows down by only 2.3%.