Emerging Stronger from the Recession to Tackle the Challenges of Social Cohesion and Sustainable Development

Have stimulus packages created synergies between economic recovery, greening the economy, and addressing social exclusion? Ecologic Institute supported the EU Commission to discuss this question with selected experts. The workshop  "Emerging Stronger from the Recession to Tackle the Challenges of Social Cohesion and Sustainable Development" evaluated the performance of economic recovery programmes, which several EU states had launched to counter the effects of the economic crisis. It was staged by the Directorate General for Employment in September 2009.  R. Andreas Kraemer, Director of Ecologic Institute, moderated the panel discussion.

The EU Commission's DG Employment had convened 60 experts from several Member States, civil society and academia. Participants discussed the performance of stimulus pakacges and their potential contribution to a long-term transformation of the EU economies, in order to address the challenges of sustainable development and social inclusion. The discussion focused of three fields that were identified as key areas for the transition to a sustainable low-carbon knowledge-based economy: clean and affordable energy for residential buildings; clean, affordable and accessible transport; and skills for the low carbon economy.

For the workshop, Ecologic Insitute prepared the background paper “Taking Advantage of the Crisis: Synergies between Environmental Policies and Social Inclusion”. In this paper, Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf, Benjamin Görlach and Katharina Umpfenbach analyse to what extent stimulus packages have created synergies between protecting the environment and addressing social exclusion. The paper was based on the stimulus packages of Germany, France and the UK. The authors conclude that stimulus packages are limited to short-term effects, and are not intended and designed to resolve underlying structural issues, such as sustainable development and social cohesion.

The Ecologic paper was presented at the workshop "Emerging Stronger from the Recession to Tackle the Challenges of Social Cohesion and Sustainable Development", hosted by the DG Employment on 9 September 2009. R. Andreas Kraemer, Director of Ecologic Institute, moderated the panel discussion at this workshop.