COVID-19 economy recovery packages COMPARISON

One year long study of one of the health crisis that developed into an economic one, analysing the measures that countries are taking to address the emergence. The nature of this crisis is rooted in healthcare, but it does not stop there. The blow to the fundamental pillar of the economy needed an extraordinary support in many countries in order to prevent exceptional economic drops.


Because of the crisis, the countries began the de-escalation, struggling to find the new normality everyone is talking about.

Whith such adverse impacts faced by countries and their population, national governments felt the need of lending a hand in the recovery of their economies and the business sector, and poured more financial resources into the economy. This money is mostly borrowed, though, and will most likely be hard to pay back in the future. Besides, borrowed money always brings risks. Time will tell if these exceptional expenditures have been wise decisions or not, if the risk was worth it, which countries were able to use the financial packages to maintain their economies running, if the money was spent correctly, and even if correctly would have meant less.


The European Chamber carried out a research measuring the financial efforts that 46 European* countries have made in order to support the most affected sectors in their economy.

COVID-19 CRISIS IN EUROPE

ECONOMIC RECOVERY PACKAGES


In the map: ratio of the total amount of economic recovery packages compared to 2019 GDP

METHODOLOGY


In the study, the European Chamber measures the financial support that European countries have poured into to their economies in during the COVID-19 crisis. Acknowledging that countries vary in their capacity to provide recovery packages, the EuCham research calculates also the ratio between the country’s total amount in recovery packages and its GDP (gross domestic product) of 2019. The recovery packages included in the study comprise those implemented from March 2020 until March 2021.


The methodology is based on gathering data from only relevant sources. Preliminary research was conducted with the use of the International Monetary Fund’s Policy Responses to COVID-19 and the official websites of the countries’ ministry of economy and/or finance. The Research Department further requested relevant information directly from each of the 46 countries’ ministry of finance, ministry of economy, representation to the European Union (EU), and/or representation to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Contributors from the relevant government agencies can be found in the "Contributions" tab of the spreadsheet above.


*European countries: members of the Council of Europe (coe.int) except Greenland, plus countries with either a part or all of their territory located in geographical Europe (Belarus, Kosovo, Kazakhstan). Five microstates could not be listed given the insufficient data available (Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican). This brings to a total of 46 European countries considered in this research.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION


The total amount of recovery packages is divided into economic and health measures/packages.


Economic recovery packages include elements such as:


  • Budget spending: spending reallocations, spending increases, and/or direct spending (e.g. direct social assistance, subsidies/grants, fiscal stimulus), etc.

  • Increased investment: direct assistance to programs for long-term development, extra support for research and innovation, funds for investment campaigns, providing refunds to filmmaking among others, etc.

  • Foregone revenue: any tax reduction, customs clearance waiver, temporary suspension of tourist taxes, reversible loss of corporate income tax, temporary interest rate reduction, VAT refund for certain sectors/projects, etc.

  • Social security payments: soft loans, tax deferrals, written-off social security contributions, etc.

  • State-sponsored loans: direct support to reserve funds and/or state-backed credit guarantees, etc.

  • Sovereign guarantees: credit guarantees and/or collateral for loans, etc.

  • Any other economy/business-related element.


Health (or health-related) recovery packages include elements such as:


  • Budget for health programs: extra spending by the government of the countries to boost policies and strategies related to health.

  • COVID-19 treatment: expenditure on hospital treatment, doctors, nurses and infrastructure.

  • Vaccines: vaccine procurement and the costs to bring them into the country.

CORRECTIONS / UPDATES


On 2021-07-23 some errors were spotted in figures of the economic recovery packages regarding Romania and Bulgaria. As a result of misinterpretation of collected figures, the data were inaccurate. EuCham regrets the errors, which have been corrected. Thanks to Mr Iulian Ernst for noticing and alerting.


DISCLAIMER


The information above was gathered from multiple resources. Majority of data has been supplied or verified by countries’ governmental offices and cross checked in government websites. The editors are not responsible for errors regarding countries that did not answer/contribute to the research. In these cases, data have been gathered from official websites.


EUCHAM RESEARCH DEPARTMENT


Send corrections/suggestions/new data to: staff.cee@eucham.eu