Recession may occur in the EU by the end of this year, and the chances of such a scenario are high. Such a warning was voiced at the conference of the Financial Times by the former chairman of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi, whose words are reported by the agency "Prime".

According to Draghi, it is quite obvious that the recession will cover the first two quarters of 2024. He considers the only possibility of survival for Europe to be the strengthening of interaction between its countries, the union of which should become deeper. The former head stated that over the past decades, European manufacturers have disappeared from many technological sectors, while Europe's competitiveness with other developed and emerging economies, notably the United States, Japan, China and South Korea, is falling.

The European Central Bank has paused in its most aggressive cycle of interest rate hikes since 1999. However, the IMF warned it that an abrupt shift to monetary easing could turn out to be a costly mistake for it, "Prime" reports with reference to Bloomberg.