In this edition of our series on Cohesion policy, we have two very special guests joining: European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira and EURACTIV’s Jorge Valero. We take a closer look at how Europe’s historic recovery fund will work alongside the classical instrument of Cohesion policy, and what are the challenges of implementing these giant money pots simultaneously.

The European Regional Development and Cohesion funds, the classical tools of the EU’s cohesion policy, will disburse €242.9 billion euros during the 2021-2027 period, 30% of which will go to greening.

In this episode we discuss how the cohesion policy contributes to protecting the environment and tackling climate change, taking a closer look at what the next seven years have in store compared to the previous budgetary period of 2014-2020.

In this episode we will look at how the pandemic has affected the labour market, what we can expect from 2021 as well as the different tools the EU has to help countries protect work places. To find out how regional authorities are dealing with the crisis, we spoke to the governor of the North Aegean region, Konstantinos Moutzouris. The chief economist of the European Investment Bank, Debora Revoltella, will tell us more about the market forces underlying the economic hardship European workers are going through and give us a better picture of the dynamics that we can expect to play out in the future. Finally, we ask Per HILMERSSON, the Deputy General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation that represents 45 million workers across the European Union about his take on the EU-level actions so far, and whether policy-makers in Brussels are doing enough.