THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION REPORT. Europe in a period of transition

THE UNEVEN IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC. PROSPECTS FOR A CONVERGENT AND RESILIENT RECOVERY OF THE EU? 89 market, health and care systems, public administration, the judicial system, the tax system, and the regulatory framework for business activity. In addition, all the plans in general overlook the risks that many of the proposed measures may pose and the associated costs that have not been taken into account in order to anticipate or counter them.The Commission’s guidance only included the need to ensure the “do no significant harm” principle, referring exclusively to the action not harming the Union’s environmental goals. In this respect, the preliminary assessments of the plans conclude that in general they do not strictly comply with this principle, since they fail to detail the risks and costs of certain specific action or the measures to offset them (ZOE Institute for Future-Fit Economies, 2021). Moreover, there is a lack of a long-term global vi- sion of the change and structural transformation goals in the face of the risks that currently exist, particularly from the point of view of ensuring that the European Union in its entirety moves towards a path of sustain- able and inclusive growth. In fact, the approach taken for the recovery plans is in the short and medium term, 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Luxembourg Sweden Austria Finland Italy Greece Belgium France EU Portugal Lithuania Slovenia Spain Romania Croatia Hungary Germany Latvia Cyprus Czech Rep. Estonia Poland Slovakia Interaction between different objectives Health Social and territorial cohesion Digital trans. and smart, sustainable and inclusive growth Ecological trans. and smart, sustainable and inclusive growth Resilience Social and territorial cohesion and others Smart, sustainable and inclusive growth Digital trans. Ecological trans. * NB: It is hard to accurately delimit the policy areas gathered in the Regulation of the RRF (green transition; digital transfor- mation; smart, sustainable and inclusive growth; social and territorial cohesion; health, and economic, social and institutional resilience) from the information found in the national plans. We therefore chose to consider the six main areas individually and those in which two areas coexist together and allocate a volume of resources above 5%, plus all those that contribute to social and territorial cohesion individually or together with other objectives. Source: Authors’ own creation based on Bruegel RRP dataset. Figure 3. The priorities of the EU in the national recovery plans