Socio-economic Implications of Covid-19 for the EU with Sven Giegold, MP of European Parliament

On November 12, at 11:15 (Georgian Time) and 8:15 CET Heinrich Boell Foundation Tbilisi Office invites Sven Giegold, Member of European Parliament, Group of Greens/European Free Alliance to discuss the socio-economic implications of Covid-19 for the EU.

The Covid-19 pandemic is having tremendous impact on the societies worldwide. The predicted economic recession will affect our societies long after the crisis is over. The period is challenging for the European Union as well. National uncoordinated responses made core European institutions more vulnerable and tested the resilience of European integration. In the nearest future, EU will have to address public health governance failures, find ways to deal with the economic consequences of the crisis and institutional fallout, protect common institutions and meet its objectives for socially and ecologically sustainable development. We can see the proposed recovery fund and European Green Deal as the promising instruments to correct market failures and promote sustainable development. What are the challenges and what are the opportunities for the EU now? - this will be the main topic to discuss.

Heinrich Boell Foundation invites Sven Giegold, Member of European Parliament, Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance to discuss Corona crises and its implications for EU. Some of the questions we will tackle are the following:

• What is currently at the stake in the Corona crisis?
• What options and mechanisms do we have in the current circumstances to avoid austerity and invest in socially and ecologically just transition?
• Can public policies and business practices in the post-COVID period be structured in such a way as to address the world’s growing environmental challenges at the pace needed to avert a climate crisis?
• How realistic is doing this in parallel to supporting shuttered economies of European Countries severely hit by the crisis?
• How do we embed international solidarity into a global green recovery?
• How to make European green recovery and Green New Deal relevant and effective in the peripheries of Europe?
• How does the US presidential election fit into all this?

Speaker:

Sven Giegold, MEP from North-Rhine-Westphalia / Germany, is spokesperson for the German Greens in the European parliament and coordinator of the Greens / EFA group in the ECON (economy and monetary affairs) committee. As a studied political economist, Sven has been active in the environmental movement and altermondialism for more than 20 years.

Moderator: Dr. Stefan Meister, Head of the Office, Heinrich Boell Foundation, South Caucasus

Time: November 12, at 11:15 (Georgian Time) and 8:15 CET

Where: online, through Heinrich Boell Foundation, South Caucasus Facebook page event: 

The event is organized in the framework of Heinrich Boell Foundation's project Green Academy, which aims to promote principles and values of sustainable and green politics in issues related to the economic, social and political development of the South Caucasus societies.