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As the world fights the Covid-19 pandemic and gradually starts to prepare for dealing with its long-term impacts, governments and societies need to learn from this crisis and build a better future.

The main lesson learned is how the deep interdependency between our countries results in vulnerability to unanticipated external shocks. With the virus spreading uncontrollably from continent to continent, the governments that have been more successful are those who have come out pro-actively with clear and honest plans based on science to respond to the virus.

The UAE has been at the vanguard. From the very start, the Emirates has developed large-scale capacity to carry out mass testing and deliver medical care. It has introduced clear rules on social distancing that have helped reign in contagion. It has responded promptly to the economic crisis by announcing a huge economic stimulus package.

While the European Union was hit hard, we have delivered a powerful and coherent response, successfully flattening the curve. On July 21, under the German presidency of the Council or the EU, European leaders reached a historic, landmark deal to bring the continent out of the Covid-19 crisis. The agreement on a recovery package, combined with a seven-year budget totalling more than 1.8 trillion, makes the EU stronger and more united than ever.

The EU has turned the Covid-19 challenge into an opportunity. Our recovery plan prepares the future by investing into the green and digital transitions. We will build a fairer and more resilient society. Climate objectives figure prominently in the package, which earmarks 30 per cent of the budget for climate investments.

The virus is a large-scale human tragedy. Science tells us that this is just a warning compared to the existential risks for our civilisation associated with global warming. Evidence shows that new infectious disease outbreaks are increasingly triggered and spread by global warming, as well as ecosystem and biodiversity degradation.

A healthy natural environment is a prerequisite for resilience and prosperity. If the international community fails to bring increasing greenhouse gas emissions down and environmental destruction continues, we will face catastrophic consequences, including making large parts of our planet uninhabitable. It is happening now and will accelerate in the coming decades. Also, the growing number of extreme weather events will continue to destroy livelihoods, crops, homes and infrastructure. It will trigger massive wildfires and cause mass migration on an unprecedented scale.

Global warming is harder to tackle than the Covid-19 pandemic, and the risks are even greater. There is no vaccine against climate change and its devastating impacts. We have to flatten the emissions curve fast. This will only be possible if we take bold action. Therefore, we must use the economic rebound from Covid-19 to accelerate the transition to a safer, more resilient future. The good news is that we can do this!

The choices we make today will define our future. Over the next two years, governments around the world will seek to spend around 10tn. The massive investment needed to kick-start our economies must relieve the burden on our shoulders, not make it heavier. This is why recovery plans should be designed as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build back better and invest in the green economy of the 21st century and not in the carbon economy of the past.

It is great that the UAE maintains despite the economic challenges brought by the pandemic its plans for diversification and investing in renewable energy, thus directing the country towards a sustainable future. This is leadership.

Global warming is harder to tackle than the Covid-19 pandemic, and the risks are even greater

The EU will engage with the UAE and the world on ways to direct investment towards environmentally sustainable economic activities. We will share expertise, finance common projects, explain our regulations and build true and deep partnerships.

It is not idealistic to invest everything into winning this collective challenge. It is about allowing our children to enjoy a good life on a peaceful planet. It is about staying true to our values, listening to science, ensuring our prosperity, and building a better, cleaner, healthier and safer future. There is no good alternative to green recovery.

Global solidarity, open and fair trade, rules-based order and multilateralism are crucial elements for the green recovery. We need to do this together. The European Union invites our UAE friends and all our international partners to put in place clear and robust low-carbon policies and green recovery strategies. This will give our societies a sense of direction and purpose, and guide investors, businesses, workers and consumers towards the sustainability that the next generation demands from us. Lets advance together in this direction.

Andrea Matteo Fontana is the European Union Ambassador to the UAE

Peter Fischer is the German Ambassador to the UAE

Updated: July 29, 2020 08:49 AM

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The EU's green recovery is turning challenges into opportunities - The National

A petition has been launched calling for the European Union flag to be taken down from outside Scottish Government buildings following Brexit.

The petition lodged on the Scottish Government site calls for the Scottish peoples view to be tested on the issue post-Brexit.

It comes after a move to stop flying the EU flag at the Scottish Parliament was shelved following a backlash from MSPs after ministers said that the flag should be flown in recognition of the contribution of EU national in Scotland.

READ MORE:EU negotiator warns post-Brexit trade deal unlikely

The Scotsman reports that Holyroods petition committee is now considering the issue after the petition was lodged by Philip Smith this month.

The petition reads: This petition is necessary to ensure the Scottish Government stops flying the flag of an organisation that the United Kingdom is no longer a member of, he states.

READ MORE:Iain Macwhirter: It's clear BoJo still doesnt get Scots (and its not the economy, stupid)

Although we have left the European Union, Scotland is still a member of the Commonwealth.

The petition should be allowed to test the Scottish peoples view on whether to have the Commonwealth flag flying in place of the European at Scottish Government buildings.

An example of where this has already taken place is Gibraltar which is now proudly flying the Commonwealth flag.

Responding to the petition, ministers told The Scotsman that the EU flag is flownto provide a concrete and visible expression of the value that we place on the contribution that EU nationals have made to our country.

The UK ceased to be a member of the European Union at the end of January, with talks continuing about the relationship after Brexit.The UKs chief negotiator, David Frost, said talks have not yet reached any agreement following intensified discussions between the two sides.

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Petition launched calling for European Union flag to be removed from outside Scottish Government buildings - HeraldScotland

Written by Udit Misra, Edited by Explained Desk | New Delhi | Updated: July 26, 2020 8:36:35 am Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (center left) elbow-bumps with European Council President Charles Michel (center right) as German Chancellor Angela Merkel walks by during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels, Tuesday, July 21. (Photo: AP)

On July 21, after five days of hectic, and sometimes bad-tempered, discussions, the 27-member European Union reached a historic agreement to counter the debilitating effects of coronavirus on the regions economies.

The EUs GDP is set to contract by close to 8 per cent in 2020 thanks to the Covid-induced disruption, even as the Covid death toll has crossed 130,000. This has been harrowing for investors, especially as many countries, such as Italy, Spain and Portugal, were in poor financial health going into the crisis.

There are three chief elements of the agreement. One, a Euro 1.1 trillion budget for the EU over the next seven years. Two, Euro 360 billion in low-interest loans for countries most hit by Covid-19. Three, Euro 390 billion in grants to the worst affected economies.

What is so special?

The recovery package stands out for a variety of reasons.

One is, of course, its size roughly $2 trillion or Rs 150 lakh crore or 75 per cent of Indias annual GDP.

Secondly, instead of individual countries raising funds, this time around, the EU as a whole will borrow money from the markets a total of Euro 750 billion (for grants and loans). This is a radical departure economically as well as politically from the past.

Given the size and scope (EU assuming debt on behalf of member states) of this deal for a new generation EU, many observers have called it Hamiltonian. The reference is to Alexander Hamilton, the first US Treasury secretary (his face is on the $10 bill), who had the federal government absorb the debts incurred by all the states during the Revolution.

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Thirdly, the EU will be able to impose taxes in the region to partially pay for the fund. This, along with the Budget details, will entail an unprecedented level of fiscal coordination among the member states for the next seven years.

Fourthly, almost a third of the overall package Euro 500 billion has been earmarked towards countering climate change. This includes expenditure towards developing clean energy, its use via emissions-free cars and other such technologies, as well as promoting energy efficiency.

What are the implications?

In terms of the EUs GDP, this agreements size is roughly 5 per cent. Given that the economy is likely to contract by more, this deal is just the first step in terms of resuscitating the ailing economies of the region. Not to mention the fact that this deal still requires member states to ratify it.

Even after ratification, implementation will be another kettle of fish, because many countries such as Hungary and Poland may resist the reforms agenda that many of these grants and cheap loans might entail.

However, the political significance of the deal cannot be overemphasised.

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The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09 and the efforts undertaken in the EU for economic recover exacerbated differences between better-off EU economies such as Germany and the worse-off ones such as Greece. Weaker economies were asked to cut back expenditures and raise taxes to meet the onerous austerity requirements of paying back loans. This resulted in massive political push back across many countries.

Over the past decade, euro-scepticism has led to several populist leaders both on the extreme Right and the extreme Left in EU member states gaining ground. The UKs shock decision to leave the EU in 2016 was part of this very trend.

More than saving the economy of the EU, this deal saves the political idea that is the EU. Thats because it has been concluded despite significant differences among a whole host of countries.

To begin with, it has been made possible by a Franco-German understanding not seen for at least a decade. While French President Emmanuel Macron has been pushing for boosting fiscal firepower to undermine the rising tide of populism in all EU countries German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been opposed to measures that would be seen as handouts.

Germany is not the only one. Along with the frugal four (Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden), Germany has been opposed to massive borrowings that would have the taxpayers paying back for decades. To be sure, under the current arrangement, the borrowings would be done by 2023 and paid back by 2058.

On the other hand are economies such as Italy and Spain, which are most severely hit, urging for a less onerous recovery package.

This deal is historic because it allows albeit for just this once a debt mutualisation (collective debt) that austere member states like Germany have abhorred in the past.

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How is this different from the EU response to the 2008-09 crisis?

In the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, several EU countries found that, thanks to high levels of national debt and their abysmal sovereign rating, they could not raise loans from the markets at affordable interest rates.

So, the EU had created the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), which essentially worked as an intermediary between the investors (who got more security for their investment) and the heavily-indebted EU countries (who got loans at lower rates).

The EFSF and the European Stability Mechanism, which succeeded it in 2013, together disbursed Euro 255 billion in loans.

The current structure is significantly different in that it allocates nearly Euro 400 billion in grants, apart from Euro 360 billion in loans. Moreover, the loans do not come stapled with demands of fiscal austerity they are likely to ask, however, for certain basic rule of law to be adhered to.

How does this compare with what India is doing?

The key deficiency in Indias Covid relief package (roughly 10% of GDP) is the inadequate fiscal (or government) spending (just 1% of GDP). For spending more, Indian government would have to borrow more. However, without substantially higher spending, the economy will likely struggle for longer.

The key component in the EU package is the Euro 390 billion of grants. Cheap loans and credit guarantees are useful but in a falling economy and with acute economic stress in the MSME sector, grants and wage subsidies might be more useful.

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EU recovery deal: What is new, and what it will mean for member nations - The Indian Express

-Analysis-

PARIS Is the longest European summit in history also historic? The answer is yes.

Indeed, the European Union is now a state. Not a so-called superstate replacing the 27 member states that make it up, but a state that includes them. We could say that the EU is now 28 states: the 27 separately plus the 27 together as one. Finally, the European state represents Alexandre Dumas' famous saying from The Three Musketeers: "One for all, all for one." The novelty that allows us to recognize Europe as a state comes from the fact that the EU will issue treasury bonds to finance a brand new part of its budget, which it calls the "recovery plan," amounting to 750 billion euros.

This historic development of issuing European debt corresponds to a social demand with weak signals that have existed for several years. Even though European power and its leaders are the subject of mistrust as national powers and leaders have also been for the past 15 years Eurobarometer surveys indicate that Europeans want a European solution to the economic and geopolitical challenges that threaten us. And while the euro is the subject of permanent and legitimate debate, Europeans are now particularly attached to their common currency: In just 20 years, the euro has won the confidence of citizens and investors large and small and has established itself as the world's second reserve currency. In fact, the national recovery plans adopted in response to COVID-19, the colossal sum of which amounts to 2.3 trillion euros, are only possible because of the guarantee of the European Central Bank and its worldwide credibility.

The advent of the European state is part of the evolution of the state in Europe. This history is often reduced to the rise of European nation-states following the French Revolution. However, this story spans more than 10 centuries. It includes many forms of statehood, and a plurality of states, each with its own singularity, as specific and different as, for example, the Holy Roman Empire, the Republic of Venice, the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom, Portugal or the United Provinces.

During the EU summit in Brussels Photo: Xinhua/ZUMA

The still-young EU could be described as a "baroque state." Baroque, the great European artistic movement, is set in opposition to classicism through its circumvention of rules and subverting of forms, mixing genres and resorting to the exception. This is the case of the EU, which escapes the traditional classification of political systems as territorial state entities and is distinguished by its novel singularity. Based on state cultures inherited from a long history and a fragmented political geography, contemporary Europeans are inventing the "mutuality" of sovereignty.

Europeans can now shelve the ideological debate on whether the existence of the EU is relevant.

Negotiations on the terms and conditions of the plan are thus not limited to discussions between heads of government at the European Council. The agreement will then have to be voted on by the 27 national parliaments, themselves networked with the European Parliament and the parliaments of local states, such as the Belgian or Spanish communities and the German Lnder. This "mutualization," or exchange of reciprocity of sovereignty, is democratic: It is deliberate, voluntary and negotiated, in contrast to the empires and conquests by kings and then nations of the past two millennia. Europeans do not form a nation but a society. For the past few decades they have been building a state that corresponds to this one: pluralist, unprecedented and forward-looking.

By this metric, the four-day, four-night series of debates are the manifestation of national governments becoming tremendously civilized in building this European state. They have become, together with the European Parliament, which is the direct expression of European society, actors of a deliberative democracy with its majority, its opposition (the so-called 'frugal' countries) and its compromises. From now on, Europeans can shelve the ideological debate on whether the existence of the EU is relevant, and focus on the citizen's debate that confronts the real issue: Are we satisfied with the political choices and public policies made by the European "government?"

*Sylvain Kahn is a historian, geographer and professor at Sciences Po. He is the author of Histoire de la construction de l'Europe depuis 1945 (PUF, 2018), winner of the Mieux comprendre l'Europe book prize.

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Why The European Union Has Changed Forever - Worldcrunch

Since Boris Johnson became the Prime Minister, Britain has in every possible way demonstrated a lack of fear towards a tough deal with the European Union. Over the years of its presence in the European space, Britain has successfully resisted imposition of labor market standards, subordination to the economic and political institutions of the EU, and the introduction of a single currency on the territory of the United Kingdom (which the UK was quite sceptical about). In a sense, all of this softens the perfidious Albions divorce from mainland Europe. Nevertheless, at the same time, Britain is potentially losing a huge sales market. This could also be a great opportunity for the UK to agree on new preferential trade deals with countries outside of the EU. In the event a deal isnt struck, Boris Johnson already gave his consent to the possibility of trading with the European Union under the rules of the World Trade Organization

No analyst right now would be willing to predict the budget losses, especially in light of the problems due to the pandemic. Considering that global demand and trade are at their lowest, Britain's transition to WTO standards does not look catastrophic for the country's budget. In any case, the slump in trading is already taking place and it is unlikely that the economy will fully recover until December 31. This coupled with the possibilities of new trade deals creates very strong bargaining power with the EU. Against the backdrop of the pandemic, the standard of living has already dropped significantly, real wages fell by 4.5%, unemployment, according to forecasts, may reach beyond 12%, and in 2021 even hit over 13%. Compared to all of this, the impact of Brexit on the economy becomes far less prominent.

Nonetheless, some investors are already beginning to shift their investments from pounds to euros, suggesting that the UK's growth rate could slow significantly in the long term. There is a concept that Europes financial center, which London was informally considered to be, will potentially move to Germany. I personally do not believe in this shift taking place to a significant extent due to multiple organisational and cultural reasons. In the meantime, both the euro and the pound are near local maximums. Market participants will likely wait for a decision within the framework of the autumn round of negotiations, during which the EU might make concessions, but the likelihood of this is low. In the event of a tough divorce, the pound quotes might face a downward movement to 1.2000 against the US dollar, while the euro during the same time period will be positioned quite comfortably in the range of 1.15 - 1.17.

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Britain and the European Union can't agree. How will this affect investors? - Finextra