Event report

European Movement Finland and Finland’s central labour organisations STTK, Akava, SAK and EK hosted a discussion panel called Europe’s Direction: Economy, Future, and Ground Rules. The event was hosted as a part of Europe Forum Turku with three panelists: Mr. Antti Ronkainen, PhD of Political Economy; Ms. Tuuli Koivu, Chief Economist at Nordea Finland and Mr. Shahin Vallée, Director of the Geoeconomics Programme at the German Council on Foreign Relations. The discussion was moderated by Ms. Anna Karismo, EU Correspondent of the National Broadcasting Company YLE. The concept of the event relied on a media partnership with Uusi Suomi media, a leading news outlet in Finland. Before the event Uusi Suomi published a piece on the event a week prior to it, with the option for readers to submit their questions to the panelists. This way the general public was engaged on the event as the panelists replied to the general public’s questions. The percentage of questions from the public in European Movement Finland’s events varies from 30% to 70%. After the event Uusi Suomi will publish a piece where the themes of the conversation are analysed, permitting the general public to return to explore how their questions were answered. The event was a hybrid one, with around 25 spectators watching it in person (with respect to safety measures) and hundreds of spectators watching the live-stream. The audience who took part in the event in person were mainly specialists and professionals from the realm of politics, members of academia and media representatives. The live-stream was watched by a general audience. The demographic data on the audience is not available. The discussion had as its aim to look at the EU’s economic policy and the Euro zone in the post-Covid era. The discussion revolved mainly around the possibility of an economic policy shift in the EU, and how long it would take to execute. Mr Antti Ronkainen raised the concern that a political decision about fiscal stimulus at the EU level was required, but to do this would require to change the treaties, which the panelists saw as a difficult and lengthy task to do. Panelists expressed concern that political acceptance for a permanent fiscal instrument will take long, which would hinder EU’s economic performance especially as compared to the US and China. Panelists also discussed the balance between fiscal and monetary policy and came to the conclusion that this is unbalanced, and that this would be something that the EU would have to resolve during the coming years. Discussion also revolved around investment, with Ms Tuuli Koivu arguing that there is currently underinvestment throughout the Member States – Ms Koivu called for governments to invest and create a more business friendly environment in the EU. She continued that new rules would hopefully give incentives to growing investment. The panelists noted that the EU was currently losing the contest to US and China, and as such the EU should put the whole economic environment under reform. The panelists did see promise in the EU’s climate policy and agreed that the EU should cut emissions where it’s most efficient. Mr Vallée argued that the Euro architecture was imperfect and needs reform. The architecture that was agreed upon has created an imperfect monetary union, and little has been done to rethink fiscal rules, to which other panelists agreed. Panelists all agreed that we’ve come to a point where reforms of treaties need to be contemplated, yet they realized that this is a lengthy process. Panelists concluded that changing Europe’s economic government is a decade-long entreprise at the very least. Panelists saw the fragility of the European economic consensus as the main reason as to why the EU struggles to achieve a political consensus, which is why it is is difficult to agree on a new framework. Panelists agreed that the EU needs to agree on the objectives first and then agree on how to achieve these objectives. Today the economic rules are not understandable by the general public or even economists themselves, and this is something that the EU should seek to resolve. Overall, the EU’s economic agenda is in need of reform.