PARIS: Europe sank even deeper into recession than the United States in the closing months of last year, according to figures published Friday, as finance ministers of leading industrialized nations gathered in one of the worst-affected countries, Italy, for discussions on the crisis.In the fourth quarter, the economy of the countries sharing the euro declined by 1.5 percent, according to the European Union's statistics office. That is even worse than the 1 percent decline in the U.S. economy during that period, compared with the previous quarter.
"Today's data wipes out any illusion that the euro zone is getting off lightly in this global downturn," said Jörg Radeke, an economist at the Center for Economics and Business Research in London.