Towards a more resilient Europe post-coronavirus Options to enhance the EU's resilience to structural risks STUDY EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service with the Directorates-General for Internal Policies (IPOL) and External Policies (EXPO) PE 659.437 – April 2021 EN Towards a more resilient Europe post-coronavirus Options to enhance the EU's resilience to structural risks The coronavirus crisis has underlined the need for the European Union to devote greater efforts to anticipatory governance, and to attempt to strengthen its resilience in the face of risks from both foreseeable and unforeseeable events. This paper builds further on an initial 'mapping' in mid-2020 of some 66 potential structural risks which could confront Europe over the coming decade, and a second paper last autumn which looked at the EU's capabilities to address 33 of those risks assessed as being more significant or likely, and at the various gaps in policy and instruments at the Union's disposal. Delving deeper in 25 specific areas, this new paper identifies priorities for building greater resilience within the Union system, drawing on the European Parliament's own resolutions and proposals made by other EU institutions, as well as by outside experts and stakeholders. In the process, it highlights some of the key constraints that will need to be addressed if strengthened resilience is to be achieved, as well as the opportunities that follow from such an approach. EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service with the Directorates-General for Internal Policies (IPOL) and External Policies (EXPO) SUMMARY In April 2020, the participants in the inter-institutional European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS), which aims to identify and analyse medium- and long-term global trends facing the European Union, were invited by the Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for foresight to offer 'food for thought' on issues arising from the coronavirus pandemic, with a view to helping refine collective thinking on how to increase the long-term resilience of the Union over the coming decade. In this context, this paper, the third in a series, follows on from 'An initial mapping of structural risks facing the EU' (July 2020), which set out some 66 potential structural risks confronting the European Union in the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis, and 'Capabilities and gaps in the EU's capacity to address structural risks' (October 2020), which looked at those risks from the mapping which were considered as more immediate and significant, and considered ways in which the EU and Member States could address them, either with existing capabilities or through filling gaps in policies and instruments. The present paper drills down deeper in 25 areas presented in the previous papers, looking in greater detail at possible action by the EU and highlighting proposals from various quarters, including the European Parliament itself, and at potential or actual constraints that might hinder action in these fields. The present paper builds on a shorter version presented as a draft for discussion at the European Parliament's management Innovation Day on 15 January 2021. AUTHORS Production of this paper was coordinated by Étienne Bassot, Franck Debié, Stanislas de Finance and Astrid Worum of the Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Services (DG EPRS). Contributions come from the following policy analysts in DG EPRS: Suzana Anghel, Izabela Bacian, Naja Bentzen, Anna Caprile, Stanislas de Finance, Angelos Delivorias, Costica Dumbrava, Ralf Drachenberg, Claudio Fabiani, Vivienne Halleux, Liselotte Jensen, Elena Lazarou, Tambiama Madiega, Nora Milotay, Matthew Parry, Philippe Perchoc, Gianluca Quaglio, Anja Radjenovic, Jérôme Saulnier, Leopold Schmertzing, Rosamund Shreeves, Carla Stamegna, Branislav Stanicek, Christiaan Van Lierop and Alex Wilson. The draft was reviewed by colleagues from the Directorates-General for Internal Policies (DG IPOL) and External Policies (DG EXPO), under the coordination of Adolfo Barberá Del Rosal. To contact the publisher, please e-mail [email protected] LINGUISTIC VERSIONS Original: EN Manuscript completed in April 2021. DISCLAIMER AND COPYRIGHT This document is prepared for, and addressed to, the Members and staff of the European Parliament as background material to assist them in their parliamentary work. The content of the document is the sole responsibility of its author(s) and any opinions expressed herein should not be taken to represent an official position of the Parliament. Reproduction and translation for non-commercial purposes are authorised, provided the source is acknowledged and the European Parliament is given prior notice and sent a copy. Brussels © European Union, 2021. Photo credits: © Theseamuss / Adobe Stock. PE 659.437 ISBN 978-92-846-7985-0 doi:10.2861/675160 QA-09-21-102-EN-N [email protected] http://www.eprs.ep.parl.union.eu (intranet) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank (internet) http://epthinktank.eu (blog) Contents Foreword 1 Introduction 3 Forestalling future health crises 5 Promoting sustainable global economic growth 15 Developing a stronger EU economic policy (Wirtschaftspolitik) 27 Towards a permanent EU unemployment re-insurance scheme 35 Improving sustainability of social protection systems in the EU 43 Increasing social cohesiveness in the EU 53 Enhancing EU gender equality policy 63 Building a genuine capital markets union in the EU 75 Making the EU single market more resilient 83 Developing a joint liability instrument for the EU 91 Building greater EU food security 101 Reducing energy dependency and enhancing energy efficiency in the EU 113 Countering disinformation in the EU 121 Making Europol an EU 'FBI'? 131 Strengthening Schengen governance and EU border management 141 Developing an integrated EU migration policy 149 Strengthening EU civil protection measures for climate extremes 159 Protecting Europe's natural heritage and biodiversity 167 Investing in European digital technologies and infrastructure 175 Strengthening EU cyber-security 181 Stabilising the European Neighbourhood 193 Towards an EU defence instrument 199 Strengthening multilateralism through EU diplomacy 207 Renewing transatlantic relations under President Biden 217 Promoting common European identity 225 Foreword Today, as Europe continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are acutely aware of the importance of thinking strategically about the challenges and opportunities that confront the European Union in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. They want and expect the Parliament to be centrally involved in EU policy-making and law- making, at every stage of the policy cycle, and they expect to do that on the basis of the best possible analysis and understanding of the issues involved. In order to meet this need, the secretariat of the European Parliament produces not just a wide range of briefing material on all key EU policies and legislation, it also assists Members in trying to get ahead of the curve by looking at up-coming issues and longer-term trends. By this means, the Parliament can be a central player in the whole policy cycle of the European Union – from policy inception and agenda-setting, through law-making, to the oversight and scrutiny of policy outcomes. The various shocks and surprises of recent years – the sovereign debt crisis, the migration crisis, Brexit, the Trump presidency, and now the huge impact of coronavirus – have greatly increased the importance of foresight and analysis of global trends, and they have underlined the general need for a higher degree of 'anticipatory policy-making' at European level. Working on the basis of the Parliament's established policy positions, we have recently intensified our research and analysis specifically of the systemic risks and challenges that now confront the Union, as well as of the capabilities that the Union has at its disposal to address these risks, of the weaknesses or gaps that still need to be filled in meeting them, and of the various ways that we can build a generally more resilient Union. The process of building greater resilience within the system dovetails neatly with the current debates about the desirability of strategic autonomy and European sovereignty: indeed greater resilience is a practical precondition for making such autonomy or sovereignty real. Fortunately, in recent years, the Parliament has generated many ideas for how EU policies can be made stronger, more coherent and more effective, filling the policy gaps that have been revealed by events in the last decade – or which might yet be revealed by events in the future. Some of these proposals have already been taken up, or are being taken up, by the European Commission. In spring 2020, I invited the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), DG Internal Policies (IPOL) and DG External Policies (EXPO) within the Parliament's administration to undertake detailed work in the fields of risks, capabilities and resilience. So far, this exercise has generated three substantive sets of papers. The first set of papers offered a detailed 'mapping' of structural risks facing the Union, taking account of their potential significance and likelihood. It identified and assessed 66 such risks, 33 of which were considered to be risks requiring special attention because they were of potentially general impact and of higher, rather than lower, probability. This work was published jointly by DGs EPRS, IPOL and EXPO