March 31, 2020 Today we face economic upheaval potentially more severe than we witnessed during the global financial crisis. The coronavirus pandemic is a different kind of shock. Never before have modern economies shut down at the drop of a hat. From one week to the next, many workers lost their jobs and paychecks. Restaurants, hotels, and airplanes all emptied. And consumers and businesses now face steep losses in income—and potentially widespread bankruptcies. Pressure on the banking system is growing and higher...

Efforts to contain virus and save lives should be intensified, and governments should plan stronger, more co-ordinated measures to absorb growing economic blow. Increasingly stringent containment measures, needed to slow the spread of the Coronavirus (Covid-19), will necessarily lead to significant short-term declines in GDP for many major economies, according to new OECD projections. OECD Secretary General Angel Gurría, in preparation for the G20 Virtual Summit that took place yesterday, unveiled the latest OECD estimates showing that the lockdown will directly affect sectors...

March 31, 2020 • The IMF’s Executive Board has approved a framework for a new round of bilateral borrowing, to succeed agreements currently in place through end-2020 • This action is part of a broader package on IMF resources and governance reform that will help maintain the IMF’s lending capacity of $1 trillion • These are critical steps to ensure that the IMF can support its membership through the global pandemic now unfolding and beyond. Washington, DC – The IMF Executive Board approved yesterday a...

30 March 2020 Today, the Commission has issued new practical advice to ensure that mobile workers within the EU, in particular those in critical occupations to fight the coronavirus pandemic, can reach their workplace. This includes but is not limited to those working in the health care and food sectors, and other essential services like childcare, elderly care, and critical staff for utilities. Together with the Guidance on the implementation of the temporary restriction on non-essential travel to the EU also issued...

30 March 2020 | 13:15 The EU is taking swift action to make available money to help tackle the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Council today adopted two legislative acts to quickly release funding from the EU budget for tackling the COVID-19 crisis. One of the acts amends the rules of the structural and investment funds, while the other extends the scope of the EU Solidarity Fund. The Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative will give member states access to €37 billion of cohesion money to strengthen healthcare systems,...

March 25, 2020 Yesterday, the Commission adopted decisions on harmonised standards which will allow manufacturers to place on the market high performing devices to protect patients, health care professionals and citizens in general. The standards will facilitate a faster and less expensive conformity assessment procedure. The revised harmonised standards play a pivotal role in the current coronavirus pandemic because they relate to critical devices* such as: medical face masks surgical drapes, gowns and suits washer-disinfectors sterilisation Stella Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health said: “We must...

March 19, 2020 With the outbreak of COVID-19, we have seen the proliferation of significant quantities of news, myths, and disinformation about it – coming from various sources both within and outside of the European Union. The World Health Organisation has stated that the outbreak of and response to COVID-19 has been accompanied by a massive “infodemic”, which the WHO describes as an over-abundance of information – some accurate and some not – rendering it difficult to find trustworthy sources...