“The EU Recovery is the defibrillator of our economy”: read the article by Davide Orsitto and Domenico Licheri on Linkiesta

The next 24 months will be decisive for the future of the Union, individual Member States and citizens, with new challenges, deadlines, new beginnings, and changes at the international level. The Erasmo Association has chosen to focus its attention on this time frame, to analyze the events scheduled with the partnerships of garagErasmus, Linkiesta, Spinelli Group, Re-Generation, Antonio Megalizzi Foundation, Cultura Italiae, Community of Connections, Italiacamp and A2A.

If we liken a modern state to the human body, the economy would be its beating heart: if companies make a profit and residents consume, then overall the increase in employment and consequently in the number of wages will strengthen production and consumption, accelerating economic recovery.

The unprecedented ”jolt” that our country’s growth rate experienced from January to July 2020, during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, stands out. In the recent period, economic activity fell by 19 percentage points, only to pick up 16 percentage points during the summer and autumn of 2020. If we compare today’s pandemic crisis to the financial crisis of 2008-2009, in which Italy suffered a fall of only 5.5 percentage points in GDP, we understand how the impact of the pandemic on almost all Italian economic sectors has been unprecedented: a real blow to the heart.

But what are the real implications of this economic shock? First of all, we must distinguish between the direct and indirect effects of the health emergency on Italy’s productive sectors. The virus had a direct impact on the economy, increasing the rate of absence of Italian workers, i.e. the number of public and private employees forced to stay at home, or worse, in hospital, during the convalescence period.

Read the whole contribution by Davide Orsitto and Domenico Licheri, researchers at the “Antonio Megalizzi Foundation”, in the debate of the project BIENNIO EUROPEO on Linkiesta, promoted by Fondazione Erasmo with garagErasmus Foundation, The Spinelli Group, Fondazione Megalizzi, ItaliaCamp, Connessioni, ReGeneration Youth, Cultura Italiae and A2A.