European Union

The EU should stop channeling funds to Libya to manage migration and to train its coastguard, as the violation of human rights of migrants and asylum-seekers continues.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The EU should stop channeling funds to Libya to manage migration and to train its coastguard, as the violation of human rights of migrants and asylum-seekers continues.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

Written by Monika Kiss,

© Angelov / Adobe Stock

The coronavirus pandemic and the measures taken to curb its spread have had far-reaching and lasting consequences in different sectors of the economy, in the form of job and income losses or significantly modified working conditions.

This briefing gives an overview of the host of problems confronting workers and employers due to the pandemic and its consequences, and presents possible solutions that can be applied at different levels. A set of solutions concerns the level of the individual worker or the company employing them. Certain types of occupations, for instance, allow ‘going digital’ (even if teleworking also has its challenges). In other cases, the company can pay partial or total wages or sick leave to its employees.

At yet another level, that of the Member States, short-time work schemes can be introduced or have their scope further extended. Governments can also regulate parameters of teleworking or extend income replacements to groups of workers benefiting from lesser social protection.

Through initiatives such as the Support to Mitigate Unemployment Risks in Emergency (SURE) and the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiatives, the European Union is taking an active part in tackling the coronavirus crisis by supporting Member States, companies and workers to face the challenges. At its 16-17 April plenary session, the European Parliament voted on and adopted a number of important coronavirus-related proposals, concerning among others workers in certain sectors (healthcare, fishermen and aquaculture farmers) as well as more flexible use of the European structural and investment funds.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Coronavirus and the world of work‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

EU tourism ministers on Monday discussed the need for common rules and protocols, referred to as "corridors", to make summer travel secure under the coronavirus pandemic, if border controls are to be lifted. Ministers did not discuss possible measures in detail - that will happen once the EU Commission unveils its proposals, possibly this week or next week, a spokesperson familiar with the discussion said.

Italy is the first EU country to seek help from the bloc's solidarity fund, which was set up to deal with natural disasters, but has recently been extended to public health emergencies. Countries have until 24 June to apply. The commission will assess the requests and then make a proposal on aid for the European Parliament and the Council to approve. The fund has €800m at its disposal for 2020.

There is much talk of solidarity these days and we have high expectations from Germany. Yet, we do not really know where the country stands when it comes to handling the impact of the corona-pandemic and the climate crisis.

The UK minister in charge of post-Brexit trade with the EU insisted on Monday (27 April) that it is “entirely possible” to have a deal by end of December 2020 and that the tight timeline should 'concentrate' minds, brushing aside a recent critical assessment from Brussels.

Weekly screening of healthcare workers and other at-risk groups could reduce their contribution to transmission by between 25-33%,  a study published Thursday (23 April) by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, concluded.

The Spanish agri-food sector is taking a central role in the uptake of the circular economy, by reusing raw materials and reducing waste in both agriculture and food production.

Research in the food industry to achieve a circular economy is resulting in new composites, flavours and aromas from the same resources from which basic products such as wine, milk or fish are obtained. EURACTIV’s partner EFEAGRO reports.

Austria, now easing its coronavirus lockdown, will ensure key workers pay less tax while multinationals should pay more as it seeks to accelerate the revival of its economy, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said in a televised address on Monday (27 April).

The European strategy, which was intended to favour short distribution routes, has been postponed to a later date.  However, the current COVID-19 health crisis is speeding up the agricultural sector's shift towards food self-sufficiency. EURACTIV France reports.

The Petersberg Climate Dialogue opened on Monday with an appeal to place climate protection at the centre of economic recovery. Yet, it remains to be seen how much ambition Germany will show in this respect. Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) will give an eagerly awaited speech on this subject on Tuesday.

There is a pan-European systemic issue: from Spain and Italy to France, Belgium, or Poland, harvests are under threat and Europeans are entirely dependent on the hard labour and sweat of foreign-born workers. The elephant in the room? Regularisation.

Germany changed course on Sunday (26 April) over which type of smartphone technology it wanted to use to trace coronavirus infections, backing an approach supported by Apple and Google along with a growing number of other European countries. Chancellery Minister...

Continuity of the European public administration of justice: the Court of Justice of the European Union provides for hearings to resume from 25 May 2020

Written by Carla Stamegna and Angelos Delivorias,

© bluedesign / Adobe Stock

The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union specifies the maintenance of price stability in the euro area as the primary objective of EU single monetary policy. Subject to that, it should also contribute to the achievement of the Union’s objectives, which include ‘full employment’ and ‘balanced economic growth’. Responsibility for monetary policy conduct is attributed to the Eurosystem, which carries out its tasks through a set of standard instruments referred to as the ‘operational framework’. To tackle the financial crisis, the Eurosystem has complemented its regular operations by implementing several non-standard monetary policy measures since 2009.

The first strand of these measures had the primary objective of restoring the correct functioning of the monetary transmission mechanism by supporting certain distressed financial market segments, playing an important role in the conduct of monetary policy. A second strand of non-standard measures was aimed at sustaining prices and fostering economic growth by expanding the size of the Eurosystem balance sheet through massive purchases of eligible securities, including public debt instruments issued by euro-area countries. Net purchases were conducted between October 2014 and December 2018, after which the Eurosystem continued to simply reinvest repayments from maturing securities to maintain the size of cumulative net purchases at December 2018 levels. Due to prevailing conditions, however, in September 2019, the European Central Bank (ECB) Governing Council decided to recommence net purchases in November of the same year ‘for as long as necessary to reinforce the accommodative impact of its policy rates’.

The spread of the coronavirus in early 2020 has impaired growth prospects for the global and euro-area economies and made additional monetary stimulus necessary. In this context, the ECB has increased the size of existing asset purchase programmes, and launched a temporary, separate and additional pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP).

Read the complete briefing on ‘Developing a pandemic emergency purchase programme: Unconventional monetary policy to tackle the coronavirus crisis‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Simplified representation of the primary and secondary market for public debt securities

The culture sector is suffering because of lockdown measures introduced across the EU to tackle the spread of coronavirus.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

The culture sector is suffering because of lockdown measures introduced across the EU to tackle the spread of coronavirus.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

Germany's government granted low-cost airline Condor more than half a billion euros on Monday (27 April) to help it ride out a virus-induced slump in air travel, but the fate of the much bigger flag-carrier Lufthansa is still very much up in the air.