Last year’s agreement on an EU recovery package was widely celebrated. This year its inadequacy will sink in.

The attention of the European public is with good reason focused on the pandemic and the need to accelerate the rollout of the vaccines. But other risks lurk ahead.

Since last summer a bubble of complacency has surrounded the European Union’s recovery package and the vision it holds out of a greener future. Europe’s constructive response to the crisis contrasts pleasingly with the dark political drama played out on the other side of the Atlantic. But 2021 may bring disillusionment, as the frailty of Europe’s economic position is once again exposed.

The achievements of the EU in responding to the social and economic fallout from the crisis are real. In 2020, thanks to intervention by the European Central Bank, it avoided a return to a sovereign-debt crisis. July saw preliminary agreement on the innovative Next Generation EU package.

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