(Adds quotes, background)
PRAGUE, March 12 (Reuters) - The European economy could see a mild revival at the end of the next year, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said on Thursday.
Juncker, who chairs the group of 16 countries sharing the euro, said after meeting Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek that the recovery would only be mild at first and was conditional on restoration of credit flows. "If rules and new regulations take effect, if on both sides of the Atlantic programmes for economic recovery are implemented, I think we should see the first signs of some economic recovery some time at the end of 2010," he told a news conference.
"But this recovery will be very shy at the beginning, and only later it will widen out."
Juncker said analyses he was looking at kept showing worsening of the crisis.
"I have to say that the various prognoses we are studying are showing a worsening every day. We can say that, really, the financial and economic crisis is hitting us with full force," he said.
Juncker said that supportive measures taken by governments were eroding public finances, and that their impact on budgets in 2009 and 2010 needed to be studied before further stimuli are approved.
Juncker the crisis was not a reason to postpone structural reforms.
He added that countries in central and eastern Europe needed individual, specific solutions to help them overcome the economic decline.
A Reuters poll released on Wednesday showed economists expect the euro zone economy to contract nearly as sharply in the first quarter as in the fourth quarter of last year, while job losses are likely to soar to a 10-year high in 2010. (Reporting by Jan Korselt and Jason Hovet; Writing by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Victoria Main)