Best hope for Europe's recovery is 'late 2010'

EU economies will contract by 4 per cent in 2009, the European Commission has forecast - more than twice what it predicted at the start of the year.

The EU says the region is going through its "worst recession since WWII".

The worsening of the global financial crisis, dropping levels of world trade and continuing house value falls had prompted the huge downgrade, it said.

Europe's economy would not start recovering until the second half of next year, the commission added.

It also predicted unemployment in the 27-nation EU would reach 10.9 per cent in 2010.