FEPS Chairman Maria João Rodrigues said in an interview with EURACTIV that the EU “should lead by example” to recover from COVID-19, but it needs to face its own shortcomings to curb existing and new Social inequality.
The chairman of the Socialist and Democratic Party (S&D) independent think tanks added that there is still no real global solution to the epidemic.
“We have made big mistakes in global governance, first in terms of the capabilities of the World Health Organization,” she said, addingThe United Nations health agency “should be an agency that has the ability and means to adopt truly global rules and binding rules.”
Rodriguez said that the WHO “is still a very weak organization so far” and she called for urgent reforms to ensure that it has “the financial means needed to expand access to new versions of the vaccine”, which is a new variant Required.
She was also about to postpone WTO Ministerial Conference After the introduction of a travel ban for the Omicron variant. The meeting was originally scheduled to be held on Monday (November 29) to debate the proposal of India and South Africa to abandon the intellectual property rights of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The chance of getting a vaccine varies from region to region, Vaccination rate gap is huge Between low-income countries and high-income countries. For example, in Europe, 66% Of the population has been fully vaccinated, while the proportion of the vaccinated population in Africa is only 7%.
Rodriguez said: “As long as this huge disagreement persists, there will be no real solution to this epidemic.” He called for strengthening international cooperation.
However, she added that the EU has proven to be “a good example” of dealing with crises at the regional level, and it can “provide some ideas for global solutions.”
Rodriguez said the EU can develop “extraordinary budget capacity” to support member states hit by the crisis.
Last year, European leaders agreed for the first time to finance a 750 billion euro recovery plan with EU joint debt, allowing the European Commission to borrow from the market on behalf of all 27 member states.
In Rodriguez’s view, this demonstrates the strong unity within the EU to fight the epidemic and deal with the economic recession.
“If we have other regional organizations, such as the African Union, Asia-ASEAN or South American Union, that play the same role, it might help a lot,” she said.
However, Rodriguez also acknowledged that the EU is still lagging in recovery and that “a lot of changes need to be made to improve its own solutions.”
COVID-19 has deepened the existing inequality across the group and is particularly harsh on young Europeans.A sort of Eurostat survey It shows that compared with the previous year, the income loss of young workers in 2020 is as high as -15%.
“We have an alarming situation. We have the most skilled, qualified and creative generation, our younger generation, who are forced to live and work in unstable conditions, which reduces their contribution to society. The ability and potential to contribute,” Rodriguez said.
In response to the impact of the epidemic on young people, The European Commission proposes to designate 2022 as the European Youth YearThe goal is to provide young people with more education and employment opportunities.
Rodriguez said: “After the generation we lost during the financial crisis 10 years ago, we cannot afford to lose the new generation.”
In her view, the EU should address these inequalities and at the same time shift to a “new development model” based on green transformation and digital revolution.
When asked whether the European Union is at the forefront of these transitions, Rodriguez said that Europe is still a leading example of green agreement commitments. However, she is worried that it will not be able to achieve its digital goals.
The analysis of the recovery plan by the member states shows that they will Far from reaching the 2030 digital goal.
“In terms of the digital revolution, we are late, so we need to sound the alarm,” Rodriguez told EURACTIV.
She said that facing the strategic competition between China and the United States, Europe must act urgently and not fall behind.
“We need a European way to promote the digital revolution, which is in line with our values and the lifestyle we want.”
Rodriguez said that both digital and green transformations need to be built on the basis of strong social cohesion in order to achieve a fair EU recovery.
“We really need to have social cohesion; otherwise, I have no illusions that the green transformation and digital revolution will create extremely worrying and highly new social inequalities.”
[Edited by Alice Taylor]
