Virtual icon The Recovery and Resilience Facility: A path to an “economy that works for people”?

Abstract

The Covid-19 Pandemic has caused massive eruption in European societies and led to a range of supranational responses by the EU Commission. To support economic recovery, the Commission initiated and installed a Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), meant to damper the effects of lockdowns and the broader economic crisis. While the Commission under President von der Leyen stressed that caring is an essential aspect in societies, the pandemic also highlighted how little recognition there is for care work, i.e., the paid or unpaid care and supervision of relatives and children, and those areas of gainful employment in which women or minority populations are overrepresented. A gendered political economy perspective sheds light on the RRF to explore the position of concerns for gender equality, care, and social reproduction which continue to shape policies in the EU. Member states like Germany and Spain have readjusted their welfare provisioning and were supportive of the caring economy von der Leyen promoted. The presentation asks if the von der Leyen Commission set enough incentives for “an economy that works for people”, or were the measures so far not targeted enough? The presentation explores these questions in the context of changes within European Economic Governance and the readjusted European Semester, through the analysis of two case studies: Germany and Spain, the latter as best practice example, and with reference to other member states. It explores if the RRF scoreboard will be able to align member states policies regarding the care economy and social policies more broadly.