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The European Commission’s summer forecast predicts Britain will plunge into a deeper recession before showing signs of a rebound as coronavirus lockdown restrictions are lifted across the country. The shock forecast warned GDP would slump -9.7 percent.

Ahead of a dinner between EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and David Frost tonight at Downing Street, the EU warned Britain faced a more troubling rebuilding process from the consequences from coronavirus as a result of its exit from the Union.

But Express.co.uk is asking you should eurocrats still be making economic forecasts about the UK in light of the nation’s departure?

The EU report warned a “failure” to reach a trading agreement between the UK and bloc would “result in lower growth, particularly for the UK.”

It said: “It is possible that the transition period ends without any agreement on the future trading relationship.

“Even if a trade agreement between the EU and the UK is concluded, the future EU-UK trading relationship will be less beneficial than assume in the purely technical assumption of an unchanged trading relationship, and will therefore lead to more negative outcomes for both sides, in particular for the UK for which trade with the EU is more important than trade with the UK for the EU.

“A failure to secure an agreement on the future trading relationship between the UK and the EU could also result in lower growth, particularly for the UK.”

Rupert Lowe, a former Brexit Party MEP, hit back at Brussels, insisting the bloc should keep its nose out of Britain’s affairs.

He said: “The EU’s behaviour is becoming more and more like that of a bitter, jilted ex-partner.

“Increasingly desperate to see us fail and will do anything in their power to make that happen.

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“As we finally come out of lockdown, the last thing the British people want to be told is that we can’t succeed by some jumped up bureaucrat whose tax free salary will go untouched whatever happens. Take a hike!”

Meanwhile, the EU executive said the 19-nation single currency area would contract by a record 8.7 percent this year before growing by 6.1 percent in 2021.

In early May, the Commission had forecast a 2020 downturn of 7.7 percent and a 2021 rebound of 6.3 percent.

The Commission said it had revised its forecasts because the lifting of COVID-19 lockdown measures in eurozone countries was proceeding less swiftly than it had initially predicted.

The EU executive significantly cut its earlier forecasts for France, Italy and Spain, all hit hard by the pandemic, and now expects now downturns in excess of 10 percent this year in each.

In Germany, the eurozone’s largest economy, where widespread testing has helped limit fatalities, the Commission moderated its estimates both of 2020’s downturn – to -6.3 percent from -6.5 percent forecast in May – and next year’s rebound.

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