Open for business: European economy, the Recovery Plan and how clusters can help
Summary of the European Alliance Against Coronavirus Daily Webinar on 15 July 2020.
Veronica Elena Bocci from DITECFER broadened the view of this morning session with a global perspective on the pandemic, and embedding the European economy, the Recovery Plan and the help of cluster in this European Plan in this global scenario.
To find the best solutions for economic recovery, it is essential to look at what has happened and is happening in the world around us. The richness brought from different perspectives is fundamental in order to overcome the interruption in the global supply chain.
Looking at the specific case of China, an employment, hiring and training crisis has emerged as the country struggles to find new workers for the market - which has consequently resulted in a productivity and quality crisis. In the last months, 247,000 Chinese companies declared bankruptcy while 460,000 Chinese firms closed. This is the first time that the Chinese government has reported a contraction of the economy since 1976.
For the European market, it is not easy to break away from the low-cost market of China. This is due to its competitiveness and aggressiveness in the global market. But as Veronica pointed out, the EU has shown two good reaction: The first is the “White Paper” on levelling the playing field with regard to foreign subsidies (consultation until September 2020), while the second initiative is the “Brussels plans attack on low-tax Member States” developed to stop unfair practices in EU tax havens.
Talking about the Recovery Plan and the role of clusters, the European Commission has proposed a total of €750 billion to be divided in five topics: (i) Cohesion and values, (ii) Single market, innovation and digital, (iii) Environment and agriculture, (iv) Neighborhood and the world, (v) Resilience, security and defense. Clusters can be involved to draft the recovery and the resilience plans, identify and draft territorial plans for transition, and develop more locally driven actions. Clusters must act doing their best to fully deliver the expected impact of the plan. The national federations of Spain, Slovakia and Portugal are in contact with their governments to include clusters in the national recovery plans.
A recording of the session is available here.
These are the complete minutes of the meeting:
20200715 ECA dailyminutes_v3.pdfThis is the presentation from the meeting:
EU Recovery Plan and Clusters_VEBOCCI.pdfFind information on the previous meetings here; information on the upcoming agenda here.
