The coronavirus pandemic influenced the negotiations on the medium-term architecture of EU
finances, which resulted in the adoption of an unprecedented budgetary package in December 2020. This combines the €1 074.3 billion multiannual financial framework (MFF) for the years 2021 to 2027 with the €750 billion Next Generation EU (NGEU) instrument. The agreement brought new momentum to the EU budget, assigning it a major role in the Union's strategy to
relaunch the economy. The launch of NGEU, a temporary recovery instrument (2021-2023), to be financed through resources borrowed on the markets by the European Commission on behalf of the Union, is a major innovation.
Social and employment policies are strongly interlinked with other major policy fields, most
importantly the economy, the public health system and education. Social considerations are also part and parcel of all policy fields – also set out in Article 9 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – and are woven into the fabric of society, directly affecting people's everyday lives. The coronavirus outbreak and lockdown measures have caused major disruption, and exacerbated existing social risks and challenges, such as: an ageing population; rising inequalities between socioeconomic groups, generations, genders and regions; new forms of work; and greater polarisation of wages between higher and lower paid workers. This situation is threatening to increase the divergence between Member States, and regions, making achievement of one of the main EU objectives, (upward) social and economic convergence, more difficult. Moreover, it again raises issues around the sustainability of public finances. Therefore, there is an even greater need than before to update the EU's welfare states and labour markets, which implies structural changes in many instances.
Given the complexity of the issues that social and employment policies have to tackle, the EU has a broad range of tools available to design and support the implementation of policies in the Member States. These range from setting minimum standards and targets, and providing policy guidance and funding, to the EU's economic governance mechanism. Beyond the immediate response to the crisis, the EU intends to contribute to nurturing more systemic resilience across the board, to enable Member States to bounce back, or even forward, from shocks in a sustainable way, to preserve the well-being of all of the EU's population.
Read more in our publication:
Economic and Budgetary Outlook for the European Union 2021
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