The former President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, calls in his article for the EU to be developed into a real community of solidarity. He speaks in favour of coronabonds, while at the same time warning that now is not the time for symbolic debates over financial instruments. Instead, what we need is actual solidarity in a way that takes effect quickly. It needs to become clear, he says, that “we will work together as Europeans to overcome this crisis”. He also notes that the crisis has led to a return of thinking in national terms. Instead “we need to talk about how we can improve the EU”.

Read the full article here: https://www.ips-journal.eu/regions/europe/article/show/turn-the-eu-into-a-real-community-of-solidarity-4294/ (also available in German)

In their briefing for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Andrea Boitani and Roberto Tamborini outline a Eurobond issue proposal of a scale capable of effectively taking on the health and economic crisis in all countries and initiating a recovery, while at the same time creating the safe asset that Europe and its financial system so desperately need.

Their proposal consists of the following eight points:

1. Any Eurobond issue will have to be shored up by a guarantee. We believe that this guarantee must be new and shared. It must not touch states’ capital, the capital that currently guarantees their national public debts and must be supplied by the European Union with its dedicated fiscal capacity. It could take the form of a special purpose fund within the EU budget.

2. This fund would be fed by a yearly »citizenship contribution« proportionate to the number of adult citizens in the Union, which would thus distribute the burden equitably among member countries.

3. The citizenship contribution would be calculated by multiplying each adult citizen (>18) by 50 euros. Estimating that adults constitute approximately five-sixths of the total population, the revenue for the EU would be around 18.5 billion euros per year. For example, Italy would contribute 2.5  billion euros, Germany 3.46  billion, France 2.8 billion, Spain 1.9 billion and so on.

4. This fiscal capacity would be used entirely to guarantee the payment of interest on fixed-coupon open-ended or very long-term Eurobonds (perpetuities or consols) and would be inter-generational (100 years).

5. In the case of perpetual bonds, at an interest rate of 1% it would be possible to issue up to 1,850  billion of these Eurobonds, including in various instalments. At a 2% interest rate up to 925 billion could be issued (bn 18.5/0.01=bn 1,850; bn 18.5/0.02=bn 925)

6. Interest rates and contributions could be indexed if inflation goes over 2% (1%) in order to ensure a positive yield.

7. Spending the revenues collected from issuing these Eurobonds would be based on a programme decided on and controlled by the Commission, proportionately to each country’s adult population. This would amount to around 125 billion euros for Italy, 165 billion for Germany, 139.5 billion for France and over 97 billion for Spain, with a 925 billion issue and double that for a 1850 billion issue.

8. Each European citizen’s initial contribution would thus be multiplied by 50 or 100 (depending on the interest rate), making right away per capita spending of 2,500 euros possible. It is a very high multiplier, which would transform a small initial fiscal effort into an extraordinarily profitable investment.

Furthermore, they put eleven ideas up for discussion.

If you’re interested, learn more here: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/rom/16779.pdf

Ecco il briefing in lingua italiana: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/rom/16780.pdf

Hier geht es zum Briefing in Deutsch: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/rom/16778.pdf

VoxEurop is a European news and debate website. With their call for a European response to the virus they demand six key actions:

1. Make public health and contrast to epidemics a concurrent competence of the EU, subject to the ordinary legislative procedure, and provide the Commission with extraordinary powers to coordinate the response to the epidemics, as a federal government should do.

2. Enlarge the scope of the European Stability Mechanism to finance the immediate strengthening of the European and national health systems to cope with the pandemics, which threatens the lives of European citizens, and thus also the economic and financial stability of the EU.

3. Abolish the compulsory balanced budget provision for the EU and create a EU Safe Asset to be issued to finance an EU-wide plan to promote the EU economic recovery and social cohesion during and after the emergency.

4. Move fiscal issues to the ordinary legislative procedure and provide the EU with fiscal powers to adopt new own resources – such as the carbon tax (and carbon tariffs), the digital tax, the financial transaction tax – to finance the EU budget (or the Euro-area Budgetary Instrument, if the decision could be reached only at the Euro-area level).

5. Immediately approve the next Multiannual Financial Framework increasing the budget to at least 1,3% of the EU GDP, as requested by the European Parliament, on the basis of the current structure of the budget financing; and with the provision to reach 2% with the new own resources, to ensure the provision of crucial EU-wide public goods.

6. Turn the planned Conference on the future of Europe into a fully-fledged European Convention to draft a new Constitutional Pact among the EU citizens and Member states.

If you agree, sign their petition here: https://voxeurop.eu/en/2020/appeal-european-answer-coronavirus-threat-5124447

Europa muss im Kampf gegen das Coronavirus zusammenhalten, fordert SPD-Co-Parteichef Norbert Walter-Borjans in einem Gastbeitrag für den stern. Verlorenes Vertrauen sei sonst nicht aufzuarbeiten.

Den kompletten Gastbeitrag gibt es hier: https://www.spd.de/aktuelles/detail/news/solidaritaet-ueber-grenzen-hinweg-kein-staat-kann-diese-krise-allein-meistern/03/04/2020/

‘We are in this together’ is a joint German-Italian appeal to the governments of all EU member states and to EU institutions. They promote European solidarity and demand four key actions:

‚1. The ECB has enacted important initial measures. We have to send clear signals to the financial markets that speculation against individual member states is pointless. We need a comprehensive financial protection shield for Europe and the Euro area.

2. This is not only the role of the monetary policy of the ECB but belongs also to democratic decisions in fiscal policy. All member states of the Eurozone must get reliable and long-term access to the low interest rate funding made possible by the ECB. Therefore, we support the immediate opening of a Health credit line in the ESM, with focused conditions to ensure that credits are used for well-defined categories of Health-related programmes, without any additional conditionality.

3. But we also need burden-sharing as the crisis hits all countries simultaneously and no single country is in this crisis because of bad economic or fiscal policy choices of the past, but because of a terrible pandemic. As we have entered this crisis together, we will only exit it well together. We need burden-sharing because some countries might otherwise run the risk of not being able to spend enough on health projects and a swift restart of economic activities. This would not only hurt the concerned country, but put the entire internal market at risk. We therefore call for the issuing of European Health Bonds with a clear and defined common objective and subject to jointly agreed guidelines. This would allow shouldering the burden together, in a democratic way.

4. The urgency is presently on fighting the Coronavirus pandemic and its immediate consequences. We should however start to prepare the measures necessary to get back to a good functioning of our societies and move to sustainable economic development, integrating inter alia the green transition and the digital transformation, and drawing all lessons from the crisis. This will require a coordinated exit strategy, a comprehensive recovery plan and unprecedented investment. We invite the President of the Commission and the President of the European Council, in cooperation with the European Parliament and in consultation with other institutions, especially the ECB and the EIB, to start work on an Action Plan to this end.‘

If you agree, sign their petition here:

‘We are in this together’ is a joint German-Italian appeal to the governments of all EU member states and to EU institutions. They promote European solidarity and demand four key actions:

1.          ‘The ECB has enacted important initial measures. We have to send clear signals to the financial markets that speculation against individual member states is pointless. We need a comprehensive financial protection shield for Europe and the Euro area.

2.          This is not only the role of the monetary policy of the ECB but belongs also to democratic decisions in fiscal policy. All member states of the Eurozone must get reliable and long-term access to the low interest rate funding made possible by the ECB. Therefore, we support the immediate opening of a Health credit line in the ESM, with focused conditions to ensure that credits are used for well-defined categories of Health-related programmes, without any additional conditionality.

3.          But we also need burden-sharing as the crisis hits all countries simultaneously and no single country is in this crisis because of bad economic or fiscal policy choices of the past, but because of a terrible pandemic. As we have entered this crisis together, we will only exit it well together. We need burden-sharing because some countries might otherwise run the risk of not being able to spend enough on health projects and a swift restart of economic activities. This would not only hurt the concerned country, but put the entire internal market at risk. We therefore call for the issuing of European Health Bonds with a clear and defined common objective and subject to jointly agreed guidelines. This would allow shouldering the burden together, in a democratic way.

4.          The urgency is presently on fighting the Coronavirus pandemic and its immediate consequences. We should however start to prepare the measures necessary to get back to a good functioning of our societies and move to sustainable economic development, integrating inter alia the green transition and the digital transformation, and drawing all lessons from the crisis. This will require a coordinated exit strategy, a comprehensive recovery plan and unprecedented investment. We invite the President of the Commission and the President of the European Council, in cooperation with the European Parliament and in consultation with other institutions, especially the ECB and the EIB, to start work on an Action Plan to this end.’

If you agree, sign their petition here:

‘We are in this together’ is a joint German-Italian appeal to the governments of all EU member states and to EU institutions. They promote European solidarity and demand four key actions:

1.          ‘The ECB has enacted important initial measures. We have to send clear signals to the financial markets that speculation against individual member states is pointless. We need a comprehensive financial protection shield for Europe and the Euro area.

2.          This is not only the role of the monetary policy of the ECB but belongs also to democratic decisions in fiscal policy. All member states of the Eurozone must get reliable and long-term access to the low interest rate funding made possible by the ECB. Therefore, we support the immediate opening of a Health credit line in the ESM, with focused conditions to ensure that credits are used for well-defined categories of Health-related programmes, without any additional conditionality.

3.          But we also need burden-sharing as the crisis hits all countries simultaneously and no single country is in this crisis because of bad economic or fiscal policy choices of the past, but because of a terrible pandemic. As we have entered this crisis together, we will only exit it well together. We need burden-sharing because some countries might otherwise run the risk of not being able to spend enough on health projects and a swift restart of economic activities. This would not only hurt the concerned country, but put the entire internal market at risk. We therefore call for the issuing of European Health Bonds with a clear and defined common objective and subject to jointly agreed guidelines. This would allow shouldering the burden together, in a democratic way.

4.          The urgency is presently on fighting the Coronavirus pandemic and its immediate consequences. We should however start to prepare the measures necessary to get back to a good functioning of our societies and move to sustainable economic development, integrating inter alia the green transition and the digital transformation, and drawing all lessons from the crisis. This will require a coordinated exit strategy, a comprehensive recovery plan and unprecedented investment. We invite the President of the Commission and the President of the European Council, in cooperation with the European Parliament and in consultation with other institutions, especially the ECB and the EIB, to start work on an Action Plan to this end.’

If you agree, sign their petition here: https://weareinthistogether.eu/petition/european-solidarity-now-in-the-interest-of-all-member-states/#story

Die Initiator*innen Lars Castellucci und Angela Schirò erklären auf Focus Online, worum es bei der Initiative Insieme geht.

Hier geht es zum kompletten Artikel: https://www.focus.de/politik/experten/gastbeitrag-von-lars-castellucci-wenn-wir-nicht-aufpassen-wird-das-coronavirus-ein-prominentes-opfer-haben-europa_id_11839837.html