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292. Time for a Corona Fund: How a Coalition of Willing Member States Can Shore Up the EU Economy
- Author:
- Shahin Vallée
- Publication Date:
- 04-2020
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
- Abstract:
- While the ECB has already taken bold steps, the EU member states need to support its efforts by committing to underwrite together some of the fiscal costs of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The best option would be to launch a Corona Fund with the power to mobilize 1 trillion EUR—support for such a fund need not be unanimous.
- Topic:
- Regional Cooperation, European Union, Economy, Recovery, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Europe
293. Deterrence and Defense in Times of COVID-19 Europe’s Political Choices
- Author:
- Christian Mölling, Torben Schütz, and Sophia Becker
- Publication Date:
- 04-2020
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
- Abstract:
- Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Europe is headed for a recession that will dwarf the economic downturn after the 2008 financial crisis. The impact on national defense sectors could be devastating. But as crisis and responses are still in the early stage, governments can still take measures to mitigate the effect on defense. To safeguard political and defense priorities, EU and NATO States need to act jointly and decisively.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, NATO, European Union, Deterrence, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Europe
294. How 'Democratic Security' Can Protect Europe from a Rising China
- Author:
- Didi Kirsten Tatlow
- Publication Date:
- 07-2020
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
- Abstract:
- The Communist Party of China (CPC) plans for China to achieve effective global dominance by 2049. It is using the major global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to secure strategic advantage through propaganda and disinformation, assertive, sometimes aggressive diplomacy, pursuing targeted investments, and offering “health cooperation.” The CPC has long targeted European business and political elites to build constituencies of support. Europe must counter by building robust societies based on core democratic values.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, COVID-19, Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Health Crisis
- Political Geography:
- China, Europe, and Asia
295. Connectivity in Eurasia: Geopolitical Chances for the EU
- Author:
- Jacopo Maria Pepe
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
- Abstract:
- As the coronavirus pandemic fuels technological and geopolitical competition among the great powers, Europe’s relations with China and Russia are facing new challenges and risks. Still, the reconfiguration of power in Eurasia also brings unexpected opportunities for European actors in the area of connectivity. To seize them, the EU needs to reconcile its aspiration to be a globally accepted “normative-regulatory” power with both its limited financial means and its more assertive attitude to geopolitics.
- Topic:
- Science and Technology, European Union, Geopolitics, Strategic Competition, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Europe, Eurasia, and Asia
296. CEOs in Europe: Business Conditions, the COVID-19 Crisis, and Beyond
- Author:
- Ilaria Maselli and Bart van Ark
- Publication Date:
- 05-2020
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The Conference Board
- Abstract:
- The Conference Board and ERT have established a collaboration to create a new measure of CEO Confidence for Europe. The Conference Board Measure of CEO Confidence™ for Europe by ERT for the first half of 2020 is 34 (on a scale from 0 to 100). The report examines the survey results including CEO views about business and economic conditions now, conditions in six months, and the prospects for their own industry. The negative sentiment among business leaders resulted from the dramatic impact of the COVID-19 crisis which delivered a severe supply shock to the economy in Europe and around the world.
- Topic:
- Economy, Business, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Europe
297. Covid-19: Recovering Estimates of the Infected Fatality Rate During an Ongoing Pandemic Through Partial Data
- Author:
- Matteo Villa, James F. Myers, and Federico Turkheimer
- Publication Date:
- 05-2020
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
- Abstract:
- In an ongoing epidemic, the case fatality rate is not a reliable estimate of a disease’s severity. This is particularly so when a large share of asymptomatic or pauci-symptomatic patients escape testing, or when overwhelmed healthcare systems are forced to limit testing further to severe cases only. By leveraging data on COVID-19, we propose a novel way to estimate a disease’s infected fatality rate, the true lethality of the disease, in the presence of sparse and partial information. We show that this is feasible when the disease has turned into a pandemic and data comes from a large number of countries, or regions within countries, as long as testing strategies vary sufficiently. For Italy, our method estimates an IFR of 1.1% (95% CI: 0.2% – 2.1%), which is strongly in line with other methods. At the global level, our method estimates an IFR of 1.6% (95% CI: 1.1% – 2.1%). This method also allows us to show that the IFR varies according to each country’s age structure and healthcare capacity.
- Topic:
- Health, Pandemic, Data, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Italy, and Global Focus
298. Covid-19 and Italy’s Case Fatality Rate: What’s the Catch?
- Author:
- Matteo Villa
- Publication Date:
- 03-2020
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
- Abstract:
- COVID-19’s lethality in Italy is a highly discussed figure. When compared with other major countries, Italy’s 9.9% case fatality rate (CFR) as of 24 March 2020 is the highest by far. But relying on this figure is misleading. By itself, the CFR tells us almost nothing about COVID-19’s plausible lethality (infected fatality rate, or IFR). On the opposite, recent studies place China’s IFR at 0.7%. By relying on this figure, ISPI’s best estimate for COVID-19’s plausible lethality in Italy is 1.1%. The gap between the IFR and the CFR figures can be largely attributed to the number of infected persons that have not been tested and, therefore, escape counting. ISPI estimates that the number of active cases in Italy is at around 530,000 as of 24 March 2020, or almost ten times larger than the official count of 55,000 active cases. This paper shows that the CFR is an unreliable indicator of COVID-19’s plausible lethality, and there is not enough evidence to suggest that Italy’s IFR is much higher than expected. On the opposite, a direct comparison between the CFR and the IFR is much better placed to paint a more realistic picture of the evolution of the ongoing epidemic.
- Topic:
- Health, Pandemic, Data, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Italy
299. The Coronavirus Crisis: Origins and the Way Forward
- Author:
- Hanan Shai
- Publication Date:
- 04-2020
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies (BESA)
- Abstract:
- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Amid the debate on the coronavirus crisis, there is broad agreement on three issues: The nation-state has failed to check the spread of the virus, quickly and with few people being infected, by using its autonomous capabilities, which turned out to be meager. Trans-state bodies that derived their economic capabilities from the state have failed in their role of assisting it. The idea of globalism is fundamentally true, and the problems that have emerged in the crisis must be remedied by strengthening the states and, at the same time, as concluded by French President Emmanuel Macron, the trans-state bodies. This study contends that globalism in its current form has failed and collapsed, just as communism and other social frameworks failed and collapsed before it. The reason for their collapse was that all of them were based on delusory utopian ideas. These utopian ideas are grounded in a dominant European liberal discipline whose founders abandoned the scientific revolution at the beginning of its path, abjured rational thought, and continued, like the church, to adhere to faith-based thought, feelings of the heart, and delusions of the imagination. Another liberal discipline, less well-known, is the rational one. Committed to truth and to the absolute laws of nature, it was adopted by the Anglo-Saxon democracies, which, thanks to its values, experienced long periods of growth and prosperity. On three occasions this discipline could be mobilized to help rescue Europe from calamities that its utopian conceptions had caused.
- Topic:
- Health, Global Focus, State, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Global Focus
300. The End of ‘Business as Usual’? COVID-19 and the European Green Deal
- Author:
- Francesca Colli
- Publication Date:
- 05-2020
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
- Abstract:
- The COVID-19 pandemic has had a clear and drastic effect on our daily lives and political priorities. But what implications does it have for the EU’s climate action and the Von der Leyen Commission’s flagship policy, the European Green Deal? The crisis may be a ‘make or break’ moment for the EU to act on climate change through its recovery plan.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Environment, International Cooperation, Green Technology, Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Green Deal
- Political Geography:
- Europe