THIS CRISIS WILL HAVE AGGRAVATED AND BROUGHT TO THE FORE THE VULNERABILITY OF CERTAIN WORKERS AND SECTORS OF ACTIVITY.

Will the health, economic, and social crisis we are going through profoundly change the way we work and our approach to social welfare? Sylvie Brunet, French MEP and Vice-President of the Renew Europe Group, gives her answers.

How can we help people return to work, especially in the most affected sectors?

First of all, Europe has for the first time put in place an exceptional and temporary instrument called SURE (Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency) to provide financial assistance to Member States to finance arrangements for periods of unemployment in order to provide emergency protection for jobs and workers affected by the Covid 19 pandemic.

Secondly, the European institutional players (Council, Commission, Parliament) will have to analyse the economic impact of this crisis on ecosystems and in particular on employment for the months and years to come. It will be essential to help certain sectors and workers to change jobs by mobilising the Globalisation Adjustment Fund or the ESF (European Social Fund) with, for example, targeted training measures.

There is no doubt that, while sectors will be particularly affected in terms of job losses in the coming months, such as tourism, culture, and entertainment, we also have the opportunity to create many jobs to ensure the ecological and digital transition, with European support from the Just Transition Fund. What is at stake is therefore the temporality of our actions and their systemic modalities.

In other words, initial measures to cushion the crisis for the most affected workers will have to be put in place through the unemployment insurance systems. But massive training measures will also be essential to accompany the transformation of economic activities (e.g. in the field of energy-efficient renovation of buildings…) at all levels: European, national, regional and local.

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European Movement International published this content on 20 May 2020 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 20 May 2020 11:08:02 UTC