A New Reality: Response to Coronavirus Pandemic Shows EU at its Best
Europe’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been impressive and although challenges remain, by working together, Europe can emerge stronger and better equipped for the future, said Nadia Calviño in her opening address to the 20th Brussels Economic Forum.
“Europe has stood up to the challenge and, in a very short time, put up an impressive response,” said Calviño, Spain’s Third Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation.
In the half year since the virus led to widespread lockdowns and a high number of deaths in Europe presenting the EU and its member states with very complex challenges, Calviño told the forum, held entirely online for the first time due to the pandemic.
“But thanks to the intense work undertaken from day one at the national and European level we have come a long way in shaping the economic response to the crisis”, she said.
The sanitary and economic measures put in place have come at a cost but have also helped Europe to avoid an even greater crisis, said Calviño. In Spain, for example, steps were quickly taken to ensure financial stability and liquidity, as well as to preserve household incomes and industries including transport and agriculture. Without these, economists estimate that Spain’s GDP could have fallen as much as 25%, and as many as three million jobs would have been lost, she said.
“If we continue to control the spread of the virus, we are confident that the recovery will take the shape of an asymmetric ‘V’, leading to very strong growth in 2021,” she said.
However, no country can work alone to resist “a virus that knows to borders,” she warned. That is why “from the very beginning Spain has been calling for a European response”, she said.
Calviño paid tribute to “the EU institutions, starting with the ECB” that had agreed “historic” measures to help member states through the crisis. All the instruments put in place by the Commission, the EIB and the ESM have been “essential to provide certainty,” the economist and former European Commission official said. “Certainty is probably the most precious asset in times of turbulence.”
The EU’s agreement on its next long term budget and the Recovery Plan for Europe, including the Commission’s Next Generation EU proposal are a ‘truly historical step for the future of the Union’, she said.
“This is a completely new reality,” Calviño told the BEF.
Every challenge presents an opportunity, but by continuing to work together, Europe can emerge stronger, said Calviño. “We have more than ever been made aware that we are on the same boat, so we better keep working together to deliver a stronger Europe, well equipped for the future and able to bring solutions and prosperity today and for generations to come.”