On Thursday, Bloomberg reorted that Fitch is expecting Germany and Italy to slide into recession by year’s end, as inflation continues to rise.

James McCormack,  the head of sovereigns and supranationals at Fitch, told the outlet that although the recession is not expected to be severe, the mere fact there will be a “recession is significant in and of itself.”

In February, German inflation accelerated in the EU’s largest economy, up 9.3% year over year, and 1% for the month, according to the latest data from Destatis, Germany’s Federal Statistics Office. Despite government efforts to blunt the blow with a variety of measures, surging food and energy prices hit the German economy hard.

Quarter over quarter, in the last three months of 2022, the German economy contracted by 0.4%, beating the previously estimated 0.2% drop analysts had forecast.

In the EU’s third-largest economy, Italy, inflation was up 9.2% for February year over year, a decrease from January’s 10% rise, according to preliminary data from the nation’s statistics agency ISTAT released on Thursday.

According to a report by think tank Nomisma, one in seven Italians complained they could not make ends meet on the money they made, as purchasing power had more than halved in the country over the past year. 25% of those surveyed noted they spent all of their money on essentials, as 26% of households said they feared not being able to make it to the end of the month.

In the Bloomberg interview, McCormack said the US may also experience a “modest” recession by the year’s end, noting that the “UK is already probably there.”

McCormack also noted that so far the cost of living crisis produced by the surge in food and energy prices triggered by the war in Ukraine has proven resistant to government efforts to tackle it. As a result there is little optimism for a rapid recovery, as the rising costs have caused ripples of uncertainty to spread out through the global economy.