IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unm/unumer/2020015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Taking the challenge: A joint European policy response to the corona crisis to strengthen the public sector and restart a more sustainable and social Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Ritzen, Jo

    (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University)

  • Lopez, Javi

    (European Parliament)

  • Knottnerus, Andre

    (Maastricht University)

  • Perez Moreno, Salvador

    (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University, and University of Malaga)

  • Papandreou, George

    (Greek Parliament)

  • Zimmermann, Klaus F.

    (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University, and University of Bonn)

Abstract

Towards the end of 2020 the economies of many EU countries will be in serious disarray due to the corona crisis. In the attempt to regain employment and production, EU member state governments will be tempted to fall back into the 'old normal' - over the thorny alternative of employing a policy of 'creative destruction'. Here we argue in favour of a more visionary strategy to achieve sustainability and to further a social Europe with a stronger public sector. A strong Europe is the solution and not the problem for the future of the continent. EU cooperation implies joint Euro area monetary funding (ECB) and joint Euro area borrowing (ESM or otherwise), but only conditional on strong commitments for sustainable development, an improvement of the public sector, joint taxation as well as for sound fiscal behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Ritzen, Jo & Lopez, Javi & Knottnerus, Andre & Perez Moreno, Salvador & Papandreou, George & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2020. "Taking the challenge: A joint European policy response to the corona crisis to strengthen the public sector and restart a more sustainable and social Europe," MERIT Working Papers 2020-015, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    • Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2020015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2020/wp2020-015.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ritzen, Jozef M., 2020. "Once the great lockdown is lifted: Post COVID-19 options for the economy," MERIT Working Papers 2020-057, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corona crisis; Europe; employment; economic development; environmental sustainability; social Europe; education; health; ECB; sovereign long-term interest rates; conditionalities; taxation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • H74 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Borrowing
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • O44 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Environment and Growth
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • F18 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Environment
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe
    • R30 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - General
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H87 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - International Fiscal Issues; International Public Goods

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2020015. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ad Notten (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/meritnl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.