Recovery should reduce economic divergence and boost the EU’s long-term social and environmental targets, the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee said on Thursday.

In their vote on Thursday on economic policies needed in the euro area to tackle the crisis created by the pandemic, MEPs from the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee stressed that EU countries’ economies are strongly interconnected. An incomplete recovery in one country would therefore spill over to all the other countries and dampen economic growth everywhere.

Targeted spending decisions

MEPs also said that the governments' spending decisions following the COVID-19 crisis should focus on putting more funds into reversing climate change and boosting digitalisation. These measures should also foster social, economic and environmental resilience and include investments, especially in SMEs. At the same time, MEPs suggest that the Commission should explore how to better finance the Just Transition Fund, designed to alleviate the socio-economic effects of the transition to a climate-neutral economy. […]

You can find the full report here.