Editorial: A crucial green light from Germany

The green light from Germany regarding ratification of the European Union’s Pandemic Recovery Fund is perhaps the best recent news.

The ruling by Germany’s Constitutional Court (photo) opens and shapes the path of the EU and permits the disbursal of funds, albeit in the form of down payments to member-states.

The Recovery Fund is enormously important and should not be misconstrued as routine EU aid or as a plan for subsidies aiming at a merely corrective intervention.

On the contrary, it is a comprehensive plan for the readjustment and reconstruction of the economies of member-states that have been battered by the pandemic.

Of course, each country individually submit its own particular plan for approval. The Recovery Fund establishes a reciprocal relationship that permits the convergence of member-states’ economies during the next seven years.

Beyond managing the repercussions of the public health and economic crisis, the post-pandemic period will pose a series challenges and difficult equations.

Greece must not lose the opportunity to bring about a reconstruction of its economic base and to partake in the digital revolution and new green policies. It must adopt a multi-faceted outlook that is in sync with the new demands in the labour market and society and the need for mobility.

The Fund will function as a lever but in order to be effective it requires an active economic engine and a society that is on a creative course that will exploit all the skills of its new dynamic.

Monies from the Fund will be decisive in the effort to transcend the pandemic and the new economic crisis that it has wrought.

We have no other choice but to utilise this funding effectively.