A man rides a motorbike past a poster of the Musical "Les Miserables" in London, Britain on May 12, 2020. (Xinhua/Han Yan)

-- UK faces "significant recession" as COVID-19 deaths pass 33,000;

-- Italy's death toll from coronavirus rises by 195 to 31,106;

-- Germany to gradually relax border controls;

-- Barcelona to remain in first stage of lockdown de-escalation.

BRUSSELS, May 13  -- The following are the latest developments of the COVID-19 pandemic in European countries.

LONDON -- British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak warned Wednesday that Britain faces a "significant recession" after official figures showed the country's economy shrank by 2 percent in the first quarter of the year.

"Technically a recession is defined as two quarters of negative GDP, we've now had one...so yes, it is now very likely that the UK is facing a significant recession at the moment and this year," Sunak told Sky News Wednesday.

British GDP was estimated to have fallen by 2.0 percent in Q1 2020, compared with the last three months of 2019, the largest quarterly fall since the last quarter of 2008, according to data released by the ONS.