Webinar: How to Spend it - A Proposal for a European Covid-19 Recovery Programme
15 July 2020 4:00 pm CEST
wiiw, OFCE and IMK present and discuss a new policy note
Venue
online webinar (Demio)
Description
The recovery fund recently proposed by the EU Commission marks a sea-change in European integration. Yet it will not be enough to meet the challenges Europe faces. We propose a 10-year, €2tn investment programme focusing on public health, transport and energy/decarbonisation. In a national pillar Member States would be allocated €500bn. Resources should be focused on the hardest-hit countries and front-loaded. The bulk of the money – €1.5tn – would be devoted to finance genuinely European projects, where there is an EU value added, over 10 years. We call for a strengthened EU public health agency that invests in health-staff skills and then facilitates their flexible deployment in emergencies, and is tasked with ensuring supplies of vital medicines. We present costed proposals for two ambitious transport initiatives: a dedicated European high-speed rail network, the Ultra Rapid Train, with four-routes cutting travel times between EU capitals and regions, and, alternatively, an integrated European Silk Road initiative. We call for funding to accelerate the realisation of a smart and integrated electricity grid for 100%-renewable energy transmission eHighway, and for a programme, modelled on the SURE initiative, to co-finance member-state decarbonisation and just transition policies.
Please register here: https://my.demio.com/ref/5ky1rNDSgIEe16Vb
Panelists
Jérôme Creel is Director of the Research Department at OFCE (Sciences Po), Paris, and Associate professor of economics at ESCP Business School. He has published many articles and (co-) edited several books on European economics. He also participates regularly as an expert for the European Parliament Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.
Andrew Watt is Head of Unit European economic policy at IMK, Düsseldorf. Before, he worked for the ETUI in Brussels. His research interests include: economic governance of the euro area, interaction of wage and macroeconomic policy, social Europe, comparative political economy. He has served as a consultant and adviser to numerous bodies, including the European Commission, European Economic and Social Committee.
Hannes Swoboda is President of wiiw, Vienna. He is inter alia also president of the Sir Peter Ustinov Institute, as well as the International Institute for Peace, both in Vienna. He served as a Member of the European Parliament from 1996 until 2014. From 2012 to 2014, he was also the President of the group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.
Mario Holzner is Executive Director at wiiw. He is also coordinating economic policy development and communication with a focus on European economic policy. He has recently worked on issues of infrastructure investment in greater Europe, proposing a European Silk Road. Mario Holzner is also a lecturer in applied econometrics at the University of Vienna, Department of Economics.