The Sound of Economics

On the fourth episode of this summer series of The Sound of Economics, recorded on the road as part of the Reopening Europe project, we talk with Antje von Dewitz, CEO of the outdoor equipment company- Vaude. We met her on June 17th in Tettnang, near Lake Konstanz, on the German/Swiss border, where her family company is located.  The Reopening Europe team was the first external visitor’s group to be admitted at the company headquarters after lockdown. Antje told Giuseppe about the effect of COVID-19 on her company, on retailers and consumer behaviour, and she told us of her vision for a post-pandemic economy which should work for the common good.

The OECD has estimated that COVID-19 will cause a 60% decline in international tourism in 2020. This could rise to 80% if recovery is delayed until December.  During their trip, the Reopening Europe team noticed the direct impact of the lockdown on cities such as Strasbourg or Salzburg, which were practically devoid of the usual tourist crowds.  In this latest installment of our summer series on Reopening Europe's trip across Europe at a unique moment, Giuseppe is in conversation with Ivo Tarantino, Head of Public Affairs & Media Relations at Altroconsumo, the largest independent and non-party political consumers’ organisation in Italy. They hear contributions from- Leone, a Gondolier in Venice;  Nives Monda, restaurant owner in the historic centre of Naples;  Emilio Casalini, journalist and writer;  Elvio De Monte, architect in Venice;  Jeannette Neumann, Bloomberg correspondent in Madrid.

In June 2020, as Europe reopened after lockdown, we crossed ten national borders. We listened to diverse citizens, from passers-by to politicians, business people to artists, recording, documenting, and publishing stories.  In this second episode of Reopening Europe, we unpack some reflections about borders and the pandemic which we have collected along our journey.  Giuseppe Porcaro is joined in by Martina Tazzioli, Lecturer in Politics and Technology at Goldsmith University, London. Her work is characterised by an interdisciplinary approach to political theory, migration and border studies and political geography. Recently, she has investigated the technologisation of the borders and how technologies constitute a battlefield for migrants, states and non-state actors. They hear contributions from- Felies Zomerplaag, a high school student in Meerssen, a few kilometres from the Belgian/Dutch Border; Djuna Bernard, Member of the Luxembourgish Parliament; Stephan Halbach, the CEO and owner of Klenke, a printing workshop in Dortmund, Germany; Klemen Miklavič, mayor of Nova Gorica, on the Slovene/Italian border; Jean Baptiste Couzin, the head of cross-border cooperation, in the Grand-est Region; Michael Leigh, senior fellow Bruegel; Ugo Rossi, Associate professor of Economic and Political Geography, Gran Sasso Science Institute; Jeannette Neumann, Bloomberg correspondent, Madrid

This is a summer feature of the Sound of Economics in cooperation with the Reopening Europe project. In June 2020, as Europe exited the COVID-19 Lockdown, we traveled more than 2700 kilometres through the Netherlands, Germany, France, Austria, Slovenia and Italy to collect voices from the ground as the borders were reopening.  In this introductory episode, Giuseppe Porcaro chats with Michael Leigh. Their conversation was recorded in Florence on the 23rd of June. Michael is a Bruegel Senior Fellow and also Academic Director of the Masters in European Public Policy at the John Hopkins University in Bologna.  Michael told him about his experience locally in Bologna and they discussed the impact of the pandemic on various levels of government and the future of Europe. Giuseppe gave Michael some insight about the journey and reveals which border was the only one on the trip where the crew were asked to produce papers. 

As the Brexit negotiations are entering their final straight line, the question of trade agreements is heating up. Economists talk about the “cost of non Europe”. How much each country has gained from belonging to the EU’s single market? How much would it have missed out on if it didn’t belong to the single market? In this week’s episode, we will look at the economic impact of the EU's last enlargement and ask who benefited the most: the old 15 or the new 13 members?

In their toolkit against a pandemic that knows no borders, several EU countries have bet on new technology from our era of globalisation: digital contact tracing COVID-19 apps. But the way they've been rolled out illustrate troublesome limits to the EU digital single market.

In this episode we discuss financial fragility in European households in the time of COVID-19.    Before the pandemic hit, a substantial share of households reported that they would be unable to handle a financial emergency. In some EU countries, many had savings equivalent to just a few weeks of basic consumption.   Giuseppe is joined by Maria Demertzis, deputy director at Bruegel, and Anna Maria Lusardi, Academic Director of the George Washington University Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center who have authored a paper published by Bruegel on the topic What did they find out, about how households finances have been impacted by the pandemic so far? Episode's guests: Maria Demertzis, Deputy Director, Bruegel  Anna Maria Lusardi, Academic Director of the George Washington University Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center Hosted by: Giuseppe Porcaro, head of outreach and governance at Bruegel   

In a special live edition podcast of an event we organised recently with EU3D, we discuss how the current situation brought upon by the pandemic could shift the ‘Conference on the Future of Europe’ debate, whether EU treaty changes are back on on the agenda and what this would imply for the relation of the EU with its closely affiliated non-members. Guntram Wolff is joined by Gabriele Bischoff, Member of the European Parliament, John Erik Fossum, Professor at the ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo and EU3D coordinator Kalypso Nicolaïdis.

The response to COVID crisis necessitates a lot of cash. So will the upcoming green transition.  But with Brexit, Europe lost its easy and practical access to the world’s largest financial market. So is today the right time to create a European capital markets union, with only one rule to ring them all; one rule to bind all 27 capital markets in the EU?

Since the end of May and throughout the month of June, many European Countries have lifted or loosened the lockdown measures set in place to fight the spread of the virus.  One of the last measures still in place is the closure of international borders, which to some extent brought back to the memory a closed Europe, and border checkpoints, which many of our listeners that born after 1989 probably bene experienced, at least on the scale we have had.  As this is somewhat an atypical and historical moment, we are going to embark in a peculiar journey, starting on Friday 12 June. Bruegel is supporting a project driving across 7 Countries and more that 2.500 kilometres to collect facts about how the border closure affected the economy and society, take a “temperature reading” of the perceptions of people, and make an analysis out of it.  It is an exciting endeavour that sees Bruegel on the road, after these months of lockdown and countless zoom livestreams. It will provide a snapshot of the impact on the ground also of the European policies which we are more of a commonplace in our studies and in this podcast.  You will be able to follow us on the road on the Bruegel channels, as well as the project website www.reopeningeurope.com  This episode provides a background overview of the impact of the reopening on European value chains, future of work, and innovation.  Guests Scott Marcus, senior fellow, Bruegel Niclas Poiters, research fellow, Bruegel Reinhilde Veugelers, senior scholar, Bruegel Host Giuseppe Porcaro, head of outreach and governance, Bruegel