COVID19: a chance to close East-West gaps?

Just as North-South oppositions structured the eurozone debate, most analysts expect the pandemic to deepen economic, social and political divides between Eastern and Western Europe: recovery strategies may diverge inside and outside the Eurozone, and the states of emergency and “rally round the flag” reflexes may favour power grabs by already illiberal governments.  

However these exceptional circumstances may also provide a chance to close this pre-existing gap by mobilising resources and policies that were not imaginable before the pandemic: stronger tools in rule of law enforcement, a larger budget and new policies are debate in this episode. 

Listen to the debate with: 

Ramona Coman is President of the Institute for European Studies at the Université libre de Bruxelles. Guest editor.  

Victor Negrescu is Member of the European Parliament. 

Carlos Closa is Director of the research area "European, Transnational and Global Governance" in the Global Governance Programme.  

Moderation: Carlos Carnicero Urabayen. 

Technical production and edition: Franco Delle Donne. 

An OpenEUpodcast produced by Agenda Pública.

Stay tuned to find out more on these scenarios and visit openeudebate.eu or connect on Twitter or Facebook to follow up the debates and find out on next activities. 

Follow us on Twitter (@OpenEUdebate) and Facebook.  

openeudebate.eu