Public Policy and the Impact of COVID-19 in Europe

Economic, Political and Social Dimensions

Magdalena Tomala, Maryana Prokop, Aleksandra Kordonska

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000619966
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Macroeconomics
• Index: Economics

This book analyses Europe's COVID-19 response provided by governments and societies, to assess its influence on the economy from both a short- and long-term perspective. The authors argue that there are three key factors that determine how successful a given country is. The first is the determination and effectiveness of the government. The second is the capacity of states and their healthcare systems in times of crisis. The third is society's willingness to adhere to emergency measures and to cooperate with authorities. The book examines the government policy of EU states during the pandemic; studies the behaviour of EU societies; reveals the influence of the pandemic crisis on the economy of EU states and formulates a successful strategy to counteract the challenges wrought by the pandemic. The book will appeal to scholars and researchers engaged in the fields of economic and political science, global studies and international relations. Furthermore, it will also be addressed to policy makers of European States as it contains a complex analysis of their policy responses and the corresponding impact on European economy and society.

1 Policy response to coronavirus in European member states

Maryana Prokop

DOI: 10.4324/9781003222538-1

Introduction

The onset of the SARS-CoV-2 virus dated to the end of December 2019, when an unknown respiratory disease was identified in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei Province, and the virus was commonly referred to as COVID-19. The spread of the COVID-19 epidemic worldwide and its growth to the scope of a pandemic undoubtedly became a major challenge for European countries in the way of protecting the lives and health of their citizens and working to avoid destabilising state economies as a result of the applied restrictions. The main problem in all countries affected by the virus was the limited capacity of health systems, and above all, the lack of knowledge about the threat, which hindered the selection of measures and tools to prevent, combat, and mitigate the effects of the pandemic. Each of the EU Member States sought its own solutions to the pandemic and acted on the new situation to guarantee national stability at the political, social, and economic levels. A number of restrictions that were proposed and implemented by the governments of the Member States were a signifi-cant challenge to their search for effective solutions to the situation (based on the recommendations of the World Health Organization [WHO]). The applied restrictions have become known as lockdown, which translates into the terms “isolation,” “quarantine,” “prohibition” and “injunction.” The restrictions adopted by the states oscillated around restricting mobility and reducing population centres by limiting flights, closing schools and educational institutions, sports and recreational facilities, and places of public use, as well as in the most extreme cases, banning the movement of people (WHO, 2021). However, the manner of implementation and the scope of introduced restrictions were defined by each country in its own way through adapting to its own needs and the course of the pandemic in a given country. For the purposes of this part of the chapter, state actions (restrictions) are referred to as “covidian” policy.

The global epidemic threat has led to a redefinition of the meaning of the role of health care and health policy in the context of state security policy-making. The aim of this part of the study was to analyse policy response to coronavirus in European Member States. Addressing the research problem of this part of the work, the following questions were posed: What tools were used in member states to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic? Were the actions of EU governments more radical or liberal in nature? Were the “covidian” policies of EU countries consistent or individual in nature? The main problem was considered to be the question [Q]: To what extent did the “covidian” policies of the countries have an individual character, and to what extent were the EU countries based on a common catalogue of solutions? For the research problem, the main hypothesis was formulated taking into account that the threat of COVID-19 was a new phenomenon and each country had to develop instruments to combat it on its own. The main hypothesis was adopted as the statement, [H], that the “covidian” policy of EU countries to a large extent had an individual character, through individual search for solutions by individual Member States depending on the epidemiological situation in a given country. The working hypothesis [H₀] was also applied – that the policy of EU countries to a large extent had a common character, through the application of similar solutions.

1.1 Methodological assumptions

Our world in data, the World Bank database, the Response Measures Database, and the websites of the Ministry of Health and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the European Union Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain,¹ Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden), as well as of the most important organisations, institutions, and agencies, both national and international, responsible for public health (e.g. WHO) were researched to find pertinent information. As a research method, content analysis has been applied to collect and group information in the context of the effectiveness of actions applied by EU governments to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

First, the aim of this part of the work was to construct a research tool that would make it possible to determine to what extent the actions of EU governments were effective under the circumstances and brought about a reduction in the number of cases and deaths from COVID-19. The analysis and aggregation of solutions applied by the EU countries (introduced restrictions) in the face of the epidemiological threat significantly revised the manner of conducting research and the assumptions that the authors made at the preparatory stage of the monograph.² Governments Policy COVID Index [GPCI] was used as a research tool. The study included the reference to the EU countries’ applied actions (restrictions) in the fight against the pandemic using the GPCI index, created to verify the research problem of this part of the publication.

To create the GPCI, the assumption of EU countries’ policies to combat and prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic was used. To date, the leading research on how governments respond to a pandemic has been conducted as part of the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker project (Hale, T., Anania. J., Angrist., N., & all. (2021)). Researchers conducted an analysis based on 11 indicators of government response and created the Government Response Stringency Index (Stringency Index), which allows for effective international comparisons of government interventions. For the Stringency Index, the following aspects were considered: school closures, workplace closures, cancellation of public events, restrictions on public gatherings, closures of public transportation, stay-at-home requirements, public information campaigns, restrictions on internal movements, and international travel controls. In contrast, the Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker made use of 23 indicators: containment and closure (school closing, workplace closing, cancellation of public events, restrictions on gathering size, closing public transport, staying at home requirements, restrictions on internal movement, and restrictions on international travel); economic response (income support, debt/contract relief for households, fiscal measures, and giving international support); health system (public information campaign, testing policy, contact tracing, emergency investment in healthcare, investment in COVID-19 vaccines, protection of elderly people, vaccination policy, and facial coverings); vaccine policy (vaccine prioritisation, vaccine eligibility/availability, and vaccine financial support); and the miscellaneous (other responses) (Hale et al., 2021, p. 5).

In turn, the Response Measures Databases (RMD) of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDD) and the Joint Research Centre (JCR) of the European Commission are a regularly updated archive of nonpharmaceutical interventions introduced in 30 countries in EU and European Economic Area (EEA) in response to the COVID-19. Measurements are recorded according to a thr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• 1 Policy response to coronavirus in European member states
• 2 European societies and their behaviour towards coronavirus
• 3 Can the European economy survive the coronavirus crisis?
• Postface
• Index