The European Union’s economy is set to shrink by 7.4 percent this year, investment is expected to collapse and unemployment rates, debts and deficits will balloon in the brutal aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, the European Commission said Wednesday. To put these figures in perspective, the European Union’s economy had been predicted to grow by 1.2 percent this year, and in its worst recession, in 2009 during the financial crisis, its economy shrank by 4.5 percent. Predicting the breadth of a recession can be a moving target, the commission acknowledged, and things could end up being much worse. “The danger of a deeper and more protracted recession is very real,” the head of the commission’s economic unit, Maarten Verwey, said in the forecast’s foreword. The commission issues these forecasts four times a year. Italy and Spain, the two countries worst hit by the disease, will see their economies shrink by more than 9 percent each. Greece, which had started turning a corner after a decade of economic calamity, will suffer the most of the union’s 27 nations, according to the forecasts, losing 9.7 of its economic output this year. And unemployment is expected to be rampant, averaging 9 percent across the bloc and reaching 19.9 percent in Greece, the European Commission said. The bloc’s biggest economy, Germany, will also be hammered, and its economy is projected to shrink by 6.5 percent for the year. France, the bloc’s second-largest economy, is expected to contract by 8.5 percent this year. Stocks drift as oil prices reverse early gains. Stocks on Wall Street swung between gains and losses on Wednesday, shares in Europe were mixed, and oil prices, which had been on an upswing recently, also pared an early rally. Markets had been buoyed this week by signs that the countries hardest hit by the virus were slowly emerging from economically devastating lockdowns. Sign up to receive an email when we publish a new story about the coronavirus outbreak. Sign Up But the gains have been small, and the rest of the week will bring more concrete evidence of the severity of the damage caused by the shutdown, with a monthly report on unemployment Friday to provide a comprehensive look at the number of Americans out of work. Already, reports on jobless claims have shown that more than 30 million workers in the United States sought unemployment benefits over the six weeks through April. Another weekly update is due on Thursday. And on Wednesday, the ADP National Employment Report showed the private sector work force had plunged by 20 million jobs in April. Separately, new data from the European Commission predicted a deep recession on the continent this year. Oil prices, which had rebounded over the past two days, fell on Wednesday. The price of benchmark crude in the United States retreated to a little over $23 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell below $30 a barrel. /NYT