EESC info

During the lockdown I experienced shifts in my state of mind. Initially, I was deeply concerned about the ravages of the pandemic in my country. And then a few weeks later, as the coronavirus hit the rest of the European Union, I found myself reflecting on how best to tackle this dramatic situation, one that I would never have dreamt I would have to live through in my lifetime.

As the days passed, seeing how many people were affected by the virus and how many lives were lost, I started to wonder why we were not equipped with a genuinely common health policy. The unbelievable difficulties encountered by the EU in terms of coordination, compounded by the lack of solidarity, confirmed my thoughts.

Over the coming weeks we will see whether the Member States can manage to put aside selfish nationalism and, in the common interest, propose vital solutions to address the very real social and economic needs confronting people and businesses in the EU. We have to come up with practical measures for those who have lost, or are at risk of losing, their jobs.

The immensely difficult situation has also highlighted the strategic importance of many professions: the doctors and nurses, the forces of law and order, the civil protection agencies, and the farmers and agri-food supply chain that made sure we never lacked for anything as essential as food, as was regrettably the case with masks, swabs and personal protective equipment in hospitals and other local settings.

Looking more closely at my own feelings during the days of lockdown, I have to say that I missed my family, the interpersonal relations that are central to my work, and my friends. But I also had the chance to reflect on the values that really matter in life, values which I have often neglected, and to appreciate how important they are. When our lives get back to "normal", my first thoughts will go to the people who are closest to me, whether family or friends.

As well has having major economic repercussions, however, the pandemic will shape our individual quality of life; we will therefore have to seek a better, more sustainable way of living as we adapt to the new reality. We owe this to ourselves, but even more to all those who, because of the coronavirus, are no longer with us. It is right and fitting for my final thoughts to go to them.

My experience over the past few weeks – much like everybody else's – has been unique and very enriching.

On March 11, I returned from Brussels late at night feeling very tired. It was clear we would not be travelling in the following days because of the unknown threats posed by COVID-19, and I was happy about the unexpected opportunity to spend some quiet days in my office. But things took a different turn.

One of my daughters asked if she could stay with her husband and her three small children at our weekend house in South Bohemia (a place in the middle of nowhere, even the farm road ends there) for a few weeks. Her husband's company had gone into lockdown and he would be working from home for the next three months. I was glad they could stay in a safe environment and joined them together with my husband. We had planned to stay just for the weekend to help with post-winter maintenance, but ended up staying seven weeks.

Later, my second daughter joined us with her small son for some time.

With five adults, three of them working from home, and four children, life in a small house with one heated room and three cold bedrooms was not always easy. In the course of these long, intense but in a way slow days I made the following discoveries, which seem important to me:

• The most essential part of your work outfit when working from home is warm socks.
• From one day to the next we got very digital, and it worked;
• If you cook goulash on a wood stove for some five hours it tastes fantastic;
• It is very difficult if not impossible to a find work-life balance and to disconnect in such challenging times, we need to work on it;
• It is fun to organize virtual drinks;
• Trade unions have a lot of work now and they are more important now than ever before;
• So many friends were calling and chatting just to be sure we were OK;
• Why do we need people to die in Europe to admit that joint European solutions could be a very good way forward?
• Virtual meetings can be a good plan B, but can never fully replace face-to-face get-togethers;
• It is useful to brush up your bedtime stories and nursery rhymes from time to time;
• In such critical moments the majority of people in my country need to show solidarity, humanity and togetherness, and this makes me cry.

Back in the office in mid-May it is more than clear that the hard work is only just starting – the health crisis is hopefully coming to an end and the economic one is taking over. Every day more people are losing their jobs and companies are closing. Apart from trying our best to kick-start the economy and to ensure working people get their wages and salaries, shouldn't we also work hard on a common, fairer future in Europe, where people live safely, in good health and in solidarity and have decent lives with a decent and fair income?

At the beginning, my main concern was to bring my family all together again, as my eldest son was studying in the US. The family reunion was an inspirational moment.

The initial lockdown saw a return to family evenings, with films and games, although these were overshadowed by worry.

Madrid was, at that time, one of the worst affected cities in Europe; the healthcare system had collapsed and the lack of medical equipment meant that my medical friends had to wash their masks, as there were no spares; infection spread rapidly among them and their families. Even so, there was a real community spirit and at eight o’clock every evening, Madrid's balconies broke into applause.

The lockdown gave rise to a vibrant response and I was quickly recruited - once again by our dynamic VP Isabel Caño - to oversee the EESC’s response to the European Alliance Against Coronavirus, which is managed in a generous, flexible and forward-looking way by the European Cluster Collaboration Platform.

This is an open and cross-cutting space, which generated the the first responses from industry, drawing together the action of “makers” and really useful community proposals such as “Flatten the curve”. These combine with a more strategic function; the exploration of European ecosystems and the co-creation of solutions, from all of the three drivers that must permeate any future action: envirornment, digitalisation and resilience.

Today, society as a whole has to fully accept that this crisis is a very serious warning, that we need to overhaul the way we live, however much some people may wish to cling on to the past.

Let’s forget about “business as usual”, intelligence suggests that we need to embrace models of cooperation, put in place all types of multi-stakeholder partnerships that help achieve this inclusive, social, human and ethical Europe, for which we have been striving for so long, after many strategies and policies that have always stalled before reaching completion.

But it is true that in the last three months we have made more progress than in the ten years following the Great Recession of 2008, which is very encouraging.

I am not at all happy with the institutional response of my own country, which has been plagued by political division and a lack of coordination. Instead, my hopes lie with the reaction of some of the EU's institutions, in particular the European Commission, the European Investment Bank and the European Central Bank. These are doing a brilliant job, because they have moved beyond navel-gazing and complacency. In short, they have stopped looking inwards and have learned that acting together and building alliances — from transparency and trust (and I stress that these two are indivisible) — are the building blocks of the future.

Let us follow their lead, on the course set by the European Green Deal and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The time to act is now!

Over the past few weeks I have been through more than I might have wished. I still have very mixed feelings and countless aspects of COVID-19 keep jostling for position in my mind, which is perhaps perfectly natural given the circumstances. I did not take the pandemic too seriously when it started.

I kept telling myself it was just a more serious kind of flu. When all the schools were shut on 10 March I still thought it would just be for a fortnight. I refused to believe anything different.

On 15 March, Slovakia declared a state of emergency. That is when I realised for certain that things were not going to be so simple. Measures were taken and we had to get on board with them.

You could only leave the house wearing a mask – and these were nowhere to be bought. The streets emptied and the theatres, cinemas and schools closed down.

Only food shops and chemist's were open. They had special arrangements in place that meant you could only have one person shopping in a 25m² area and you had to use sanitiser outside every shop entrance. Some shopping times were set aside for pensioners.

People coming back from abroad had to go into state quarantine. Behind the closed shops I could see the landlords, owners and staff who were not just frightened of the virus, but frightened for their jobs as well. On the one hand we were all frightened of being infected, on the other we were aware that some employers would not be able to cope with this situation and that jobs would be lost as a result.

This was one of the many problems we tackled at work. And we worked more than usual. Employers needed help in a number of areas. It was as if we were divided into those who were inundated with work and those who would have loved to work but were unable to.

From the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, our association pointed out the need for swift measures to help employers and entrepreneurs that would cushion the economic fallout of coronavirus. From the beginning, we were actively involved in commenting on the proposals put forward and we have also come up with a lot of our own.

We are trying to promote and support those proposals that seek to protect employment and the viability of firms. Our shared goal has to be keeping as many jobs as possible – all the more so because the threat of mass redundancies has never been so great and so real.

We consider it imperative that Slovakia have in place a highly effective social dialogue, backed at the national level by the tripartite configuration of workers, employers and government. Maintaining social harmony should be the goal of any government, and we believe that particularly in this difficult period it is very important to pursue a responsible and balanced policy towards employees and employers not only in every country but also at European level.

I still remember very clearly the day when public life shut down: it was Friday the 13th of March. The mood on the streets of Linz was unusually tense. There was something in the air − and it wasn't long after that the lockdown began.

The whole situation was unreal. It felt as though we would be at home for a very long time, and we set to immediately and cleaned the whole house. While there was a feeling of danger everywhere and people were withdrawing from life outside, the virtual world was humming with activity: lots of funny posts were shared, probably to help cope with the situation.

The long telephone conversations with family and friends were dominated by one subject: coronavirus. Walking the dog was particularly important for me: without it I would have gone mad.

As the lovely weather was also drawing many others outside, I tried out new, less frequented paths so that I could keep enough distance from people. The sound of the trams, otherwise lost in the general traffic noise, was noticeable, as was the quietly flowing Danube.

Teleworking reminded me of my student years, when I also studied at home. What was new was the dominance of the online world. My calendar progressively filled up with online meetings, online events and even telephone dates. The volume of e-mails, already considerable, swelled even more, while the number of reasons to hold a teleconference kept growing. My professional interactions with people hundreds of kilometres away were just as lively as those with neighbours living in the next street.

Austria's lockdown has been relaxed in stages from the end of May, with some fits and starts. There was often uncertainty about what actually was or would be allowed. The return to the world "outside" at first took some getting used to, especially since many things were different now. It was a world of sanitiser and social distancing, of masks and visors. But my feeling above all has been happiness that physical encounters with people are now possible again.

Three months have passed since the lockdown was brought in. Cities are now starting to reopen, and it is a good time to reflect on what has happened, as the rapidly spreading virus has touched upon all aspects of our personal and community life.

Three months ago, everything was normal. I worked in my office and travelled regularly to Brussels. After the outbreak of the pandemic, flights were suddenly cancelled and new policies on COVID-19 were updated every day. That brought changes in both my professional and private life.

My organisation had to cancel or postpone several events that had already been prepared, and in mid-March we started to work from home. Although this change of plan was distressing for all of us, we decided to use this time to develop some new ideas for projects and build some new partnerships by using online tools. We organised some online events and prepared some teaching tools on sustainable development for remote schooling.

But our biggest fear remains how civil society organisations will survive, as there is less money for our work. The Croatian government has introduced certain measures to support job preservation, but civil society organisations have been excluded.

In my private life, I was unlucky to have to spend the quarantine without my husband, who was unable to return home from abroad and had no choice but to stay far away, separated from our family for more than 90 days, sharing the fate of many Europeans.

Just when we thought that things could not get any worse, on Sunday, 22 March at 6:24 a.m., a terrible earthquake woke us up in Zagreb. First there was panic, then shock and after that, fear and uncertainty. Zagreb's historic centre was hit hard, reconstruction and repairs of buildings and infrastructure will be a complex and lengthy process.

We survived that, too. It is important to mention that we have demonstrated and proven that we cannot do without one another, without solidarity and volunteers, nor without strong public health systems that we have to preserve and make even stronger.

So, is there something positive? There are some specific changes that I would like to keep. I have started to practice the Feldenkrais Method via Zoom and I have also started to cook regularly.

It is a privilege to be able to work from home, no longer having to commute to work, have more sleep and less stress. But millions who have been pushed out of the workforce wish they could be working more, not less.

I would say that my hometown is now a COVID-19-free zone.  I hope the events of 2020 will teach us to value our freedom more, and to appreciate the happiness of having a normal life, with its routines and everyday things. Of course, I also hope that 2020 will mark a turning point when unjust, destructive and inhumane systems begin to be transformed.

Journalists explained to the French people that as the lockdown spread across the European Union, France had to get ready.

My farm wasn't affected – we had to carry on working, with distancing measures, so we could supply all our clients. It was when I was making deliveries to them that I saw for myself that the streets were empty, parking spaces were unoccupied and people were really applying the distancing rules – only one person at a time in shops, keeping a distance while queuing: all the pictures we saw from Italy had set a good example for French consumers to follow.

We've lost all our restaurant-owner clients, but farm sales have doubled and butcher shop sales have risen by 50%. We have actually sold more than usual. These are products that take several months to develop, meaning that we operate on a just-in-time basis and it's only now that we're returning to normal consumption compared to our level of production.

I was very happy to be at home with some of my children, along with our employees, who were relieved to be able to work at a time when half of all French workers were part-unemployed.

Since I was on our farm round the clock, I worked physically as well as mentally, so I managed to shed a few kilos.

I felt a bit as if it was Christmas, with everyone there – we enjoyed being together. But it was only the immediate family, not the wider family group, and not seeing friends and giving them a hug – that was sad. It made me think about my colleagues who live far away and experience this distance from other people all year.

I discovered the joys of teleworking – both employers and employees were happy. My greatest concern is for the transport, hotel and catering and events sectors, for the office space market or the flax sector, everything to do with horses, cider production and so on – we have to keep on producing wealth.

My main concern over the last few months has been for the EU to deal with this crisis in a way that reflects its original project and its structure, which are based on certain values, a single market and a currency zone that includes most of its Member States.

I have also been hoping we would all finally realise that, as Aristotle pointed out, currency is fundamental to a collective sense of belonging.

I have spent many hours re-reading books on the EU’s failed response to the 2008 crisis, analysing articles and proposals on the urgent need to provide a different kind of response to this devastating crisis; a response that is faster and, above all, more coherent and which sets out a long-term vision.

I have been discussing these ideas with friends and with the leaders of the trade union of which I am a member. We have to take this opportunity to break with the dogma of radical austerity that has now held sway for decades, and establish a genuine link between fiscal policy and monetary policy.

I have also been writing about something I believe to be essential: to ensure that in political and economic terms, the EU does not turn up late for the move towards a federal union - or misses out on it altogether. This constitutes my own small contribution to influencing matters in this direction.

Of course, I, like everyone else, I suppose, have read and thought about what the situation might be like once this initial fight against the pandemic is over. In the worst-case scenario, ending the lockdown could lead to inward-looking identity politics and authoritarian approaches, to a type of looming war, with everyone pitted against each other in the public sphere, just as neo-liberalism had already advocated for individuals. Alternatively, the end of the pandemic could lead to a form of a globalisation based on a sort of governance that is more multilateral, human and more socially just.

The crisis itself is undeniably highlighting the costs of a lack of democratic planning — not only in the healthcare sector, but also, among others, in industry — and an eroded awareness of the common good, as the result of an ideology, almost a religion, such as the neo-liberal one that has undermined the pillars of the social state. This crisis has quite clearly shown that all public goods, from healthcare to education and infrastructure, constitute the true wealth of nations, and that these need to be saved and safeguarded.

As someone living in the countryside and mad about gardening, I have to confess that I have not suffered unduly from the lockdown, apart from no longer being able to see family and friends.

Personally, I would draw three lessons from this crisis. First of all, while the EU did eventually come up with budget measures to help the recovery, it was regrettable that there was a lack of consultation between the Member States on providing health equipment at the peak of the crisis, or on measures to be taken when easing the lockdown. A more joined-up approach would have shown the public the value of the EU.

The second lesson, based on what I experienced in my own country, is this: what I shall take from all this, rather than the manifest failure of some of those in charge of tackling the crisis in terms of communication and the provision of protective equipment, is the dedication throughout the emergency of large numbers of people – in the health sector, of course, but also elsewhere. In fact, it is the public services, much maligned by some on occasions, that have enabled the whole of our society to get through this crisis – not to mention the many manifestations of solidarity from the public itself.

Finally, the third lesson, to my mind, is the fortitude and discipline that people are capable of when necessary. Of course, in this case it was health that was at stake, facing a little-understood virus for which there is no cure.

If there is one thing I would wish for, it would be that, just as we listened to the experts in tackling this health crisis, we would similarly follow what climate scientists and other experts have to say in managing the climate transition as we embark upon the recovery. 

In agriculture, while there were good conditions for work in spring, the lockdown and the closing of businesses and the hospitality sector led to a slump in demand, squeezing the prices of some dairy products, such as milk, pigs, certain categories of livestock and, for Belgium in particular, potatoes as a result of the closure of processing plants – big exporters in normal times.

Horticulture has also suffered terribly not just from the lockdown but from the shortage of seasonal labour for fruit picking. However, farmers who opted for farmgate sales are one good news story.

Consumers really have turned back to locally produced food for both meat and dairy and fruit and vegetables. Let us hope this continues in the future!

I didn't find it particularly difficult to stay at home during the lockdown. There were a number of things I'd been putting off doing for years. So I had the chance to get down to them and was glad to be able to sort them out. The family photos and mementoes that I'd collected from our parents' houses were all mixed up, so I sorted through them. Putting them in order like this was very emotional. I kept myself busy with activities I'd missed, such as handicrafts, baking, cooking, making traditional Greek liqueurs, jams and preserves - things I don't normally have the time for when I'm trying to keep up with the hectic demands of my job.

On the other hand, I have to say that I really missed the children because they don't live with us. Our younger son would pass by beneath the balcony so we could see each other from a distance, which was hard and brought home how much we were missing out on. I stayed in touch online with my son in England. But we felt the need to contact each other, even though only online, more often than before.

I have the feeling that we gradually began to remember some of the values we had forgotten, such as showing solidarity, saying hello to the people who live next door but who we would forget to greet, smiling from the balcony to someone passing by on the street below. With the pandemic, feelings we had actually forgotten about resurfaced. We had forgotten to feel gratitude. We had been taking our health for granted. In 2020, we could never have imagined that a virus would do so much harm, that it would take loved ones away from us, that in a neighbouring country there would be such a high death rate, so many human lives lost. It all makes you think a bit differently, take a closer look at your basic life values.

The pandemic has thankfully also made us realise the overriding importance of science in our lives. We need to start a discussion to see which countries have been the most affected and why, looking into the role of populism and conspiracy theories, not to mention the anti-vaccination movement, in these countries. The acceptance of and trust in science on the part of politicians and the public has protected some countries, such as Greece. I think we also need to start a discussion about the role of the church, the media and prominent public figures during the pandemic.

It is very significant that in all countries the value of national health systems emerged, since more recently, in the wake of globalisation and society's emphasis on ways of generating wealth, we have woken up to the fact that some services cannot be delivered under a profits-based approach. We had neglected national health systems and came to understand how they need to operate, not just in the event of a pandemic, but always. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to all those who were on the front line in spite of all the difficulties facing national health systems.

I would like to add a few words on the subject of consumers. Unfortunately in many Member States, due to the pandemic, there was a deterioration in standards of consumer protection, especially for passengers/travellers. Although the relevant EU Commissioner issued a recommendation to Member States not to suspend legislation protecting consumers in respect of flights, package tours and transport, many Member States unfortunately went ahead with the suspension. So instead ofbeing able to get our money back when we cancel tickets, they are giving us vouchers - valid for 12 to 18 months - which are not even guaranteed in the event of the company
we are travelling with filing for bankruptcy. If we do not use the vouchers within the time limit, then we will be able to get our money back. This amounts to interest-free borrowing on the part of the travel companies at the expense of consumers, who have also been affected by the pandemic. I know of people who do not need their vouchers as there is no way they will be using them in the next 12 to 18 months (e.g. school trips for children
who finish secondary school this year). And yet for 12 to 18 months, the parents of these children will have provided an interest-free loan to anyone involved in organising these trips. It is unacceptable for consumer rights to be curtailed.

Moreover, as we are living in a digital era and have all been working from home, making much more use of the Internet, there have been many more cases of online fraud, as well as far more widespread dissemination of fake news, including alleged conspiracies.

What we do need, on the other hand, is to ensure that workers continue to enjoy their acquired rights when teleworking. One issue worth looking into is how teleworkers' performance is calculated, how it should be assessed, and in any event we need to examine working relations under teleworking conditions.

Another very important parameter that the EESC has started to use - one for which the EESC president, Luca Jahier, has already voiced his support on Twitter - is the proposal by the Greek prime minister calling for joint procurement on the part of the Member States of vaccines, therapeutics, medicines and diagnostic tests, so that no Member State is left without supplies that are vital for human life.

This is an initiative that needs to be taken up by the EESC as a whole, in the form of an own-initiative opinion, in order to be absolutely certain that all Member States have equal access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. I would like to say that it gave me great pleasure to present this proposal both to our president, Luca Jahier, and to the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), and both agreed to support it.

A recent EESC publication brings together all the opinions and reports which, over the last thirty years, have enabled the EESC and civil society organisations to strengthen participatory democracy and become a key player in the European decision-making process.

The compendium retraces the EESC's role in creating a European public forum and developing civil dialogue within the EU – a key step towards the emergence of a European public sphere and, ultimately, of a European identity.

"As a major player and creative force, the EESC has profoundly altered the arrangements for exercising and shaping civil dialogue," writes EESC president Luca Jahier in the introduction.

The compendium highlights the EESC's contribution to the drafting of Article 11 of the Treaty of Lisbon, which provided a legal basis for the enhancement of participatory democracy, and the Committee's ongoing commitment to ensuring the success of one of the Treaty's most promising innovations, the European Citizens' Initiative.

Moving on from its past trajectory to its future outlook against the background of the radical changes taking place in our society and the challenges facing the EU, the EESC sees a key role for itself in anticipating change and helping address the public's lack of trust in the EU. The Conference on the Future of Europe will be an opportunity for it to confirm its role as cornerstone of civil dialogue and to assert itself vis-à-vis the other institutions.

Participatory Democracy - A success story written by the EESC is available online at https://bit.ly/2UdMA6n .