European retail comps stable, but lower than expectations

<p>The retail comps for December in Europe are in, and they show the impacts of a global recession playing out in the European Union.</p> <p>A silver lining for industry sales - the EU comps are slightly better than their U.S. counterparts.</p> <p><img class="float_Right_w_Border" src="https://shop-eat-surf-outdoor.com/userfiles/image/blog/Indexes charts/Jan09FranceRetail.jpg" alt="France retail comps" width="350" height="216" />And the region's November-to-December comps show some stabilization across the 15-nation Euro area and the broader 27-nation European Union, analysts at Eurostat said.</p>