"The immediate economic priority for the EU and its member states at the moment is to provide coordinated crisis response to the COVID-19 outbreak in order to maintain the essential functioning of our economy and preserve an intact business eco-system. But as we move from acute crisis management initiatives to the longer-term task of restarting growth and rebuilding our economy in the aftermath of the ongoing crisis, we will need to focus on economic and structural reforms that will unlock Europe's economic potentials.
On 25 March BusinessEurope published its annual Reform Barometer, a publication which benchmarks the EU's competitiveness with other major economies. It shows that the EU is lagging behind other major economies on a range of areas that are crucial to ensuring a strong and competitive economy.

Concerningly, the Reform Barometer also showed against this background that, according to our survey of member federations, the impetus for economic reform has been dented. Our member federations estimate that member states have satisfactorily implemented only 13 % of the essential reforms agreed with the EU, down from 20% last year."

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