Bouncing Back: President Ursula von der Leyen Looks Forward to EU Recovery

“Europe’s economy is finally back on track,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the Brussels Economic Forum. The Commission chief also welcomed the fact that all four keynote speakers at the 2021 Forum were women.

Speaking before Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, and Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, von der Leyen said the EU economy was likely to grow by 4.2% this year, and by 4.4% in 2022. “And the numbers are looking better and better as we go through the year,” she added. “This means that in 18 months from now, all 27 Member States will be back on track, recovered from the crisis. No one expected this just a few months ago.”

“This is the result of the policy decisions we took since the very early days of the pandemic,” the European Commission President said.

Of all these decisions, von de Leyen chose to focus on two. “The first is our work on vaccines,” she said. “Vaccination is now allowing our countries and our economies to reopen. And the second factor is the unprecedented economic stimulus measures that we have put together at the European level and at the national level.”

At the date of her speech, more than 60% of EU adults had received at least a first vaccine. Some 41% were fully vaccinated.

“This is good,” said the European Commission President. “But we all know that we are not out of the woods yet. We also have to support our neighbours and we have to support the rest of the world. Because we will only be able to turn this page when we have reached immunity worldwide.”

At home in Europe however, the future as set out by von der Leyen looks bright. “We are doing more than just increase our GDP. We are building a new economy – digital, circular and sustainable.”

This is in large part due to the €800 billion NextGenerationEU recovery package. Bonds to finance NextGeerationEU were seven times oversubscribed, von der Leyen told the Brussels Economic Forum.

“We are not just bouncing back to pre-crisis level,” the president predicted. “We are bouncing forward into the future.”