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By Jan Strupczewski and Anna Willard

WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - The European economy is showing some positive signs that it is closer to a recovery than before, Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said on Thursday.

"Looking at some indicators in Europe, some of them are sending us some positive signals, (but) it is not yet evident that we will start a recovery tomorrow. We still have a lot of difficult tasks ahead of us, but some positive indicators are indeed welcome," Almunia told a seminar.

The euro zone's services and manufacturing sectors posted their best performance in six months in April, key surveys showed on Thursday, suggesting the severity of the recession may have eased.

"If we are not yet in a recovery, at least we are closer to the bottom, and closer to the beginning of the recovery than we were," Almunia said.

He was speaking a day before Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers from the United States, Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Germany and Italy meet in Washington to discuss the global economy.

The G7 meeting will be followed by a meeting of finance ministers from the G20, which includes major emerging market economies.

He said Europe had been slow to react to the financial crisis, but added the size of stimulus packages put in place in Europe should not be underestimated and was not much smaller than in the United States.