Documents Fernandes, Sofia 3 results

"On 9 April 2020, the EU finance ministers of the enlarged Eurogroup (with the ministers of the eight countries which are not members of the euro area) agreed, at least in principle, to implement SURE, a pan-European support system for national short-time work schemes, proposed by the European Commission.
We will discuss the relationship between this proposal and the idea of a European unemployment re-insurance scheme, to which the Commission also refers in its communication on SURE. Rather than an “unemployment (re)insurance scheme”, in its first-order effect, SURE is above all a “job insurance scheme”. We will explain why, against the backdrop of the sharp contraction caused by the public-health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, collective European support for this type of measure is welcome and urgent, even though SURE can only constitute one component of a much broader European solidarity effort. The Commission's proposal has some important virtues, in particular the scale of the planned support, but we will also identify some questions and caveats that it raises. Systems which can prevent lay-offs for a limited time cannot be the only solution to combat unemployment. Establishing SURE is an important step forward in the organisation of European solidarity, but it does not dispense us of making progress towards a fully-fledged European unemployment re-insurance scheme for which SURE should act as a lynchpin. We will recap the main economic and political arguments in favour of the implementation of such a system and stress that, notwithstanding some national sensitivities, European citizens, regardless of whether they live in the North or the South, in “old” or “new” Member States, are in favour of this type of cross-border solidarity.
The timeline is a short one. It is urgent to implement SURE as quickly as possible. Failing this, the economic and social upheavals caused by the vital fight against the pandemic will grow."

"With the European Green Deal, the green transition has moved to the top of the EU political agenda, as put forward by President von der Leyen in her first State of the Union speech delivered on September 16th. Its success largely depends on its capacity to gather public support. In this paper, we argue that securing widespread support requires that businesses and citizens behave as actors of change rather than mere passive recipients of the transformations already underway. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we see the recovery period as a crucial moment to codesign such an inclusive and participatory process. To this end, we put forward recommendations exploring the role of three key groups of actors in the transition: businesses, workers and citizens. For each, we warrant that the implementation of an adequate regulatory framework –creating the right environment for companies, as well as supporting vulnerable workers and citizens throughout the transition– should be complemented by concrete measures empowering them to take ownership of the green transition and shaping their own future. This could, for instance, translate into increased participation of companies in European initiatives to foster innovation in their sector, more training opportunities for workers to acquire green skills, concrete actions to eradicate energy poverty and the development of participatory governance structures to strengthen the voice of European citizens."