Debate: Tourism and transport in  and beyond
Date: WEDNESDAY, 17 JUNE 2020
Speaker: Adina-Ioana Vălean
Language: EN

I said in the beginning, I gave some hints, well, you know, I’m thinking, and I’m sure many of you are doing the same thing, that we need to develop a sort of an emergency plan so that next time if, God forbid such a thing will come again, we will be prepared, for the second one.  And then we have to debate the lessons learned and I think this is also something very important that needs to be done very soon. We have to learn from the lessons that this crisis taught us in order to become better, and as has been said, it showed us our limits.  But on the other hand, now we are talking about tourism because it’s been hit so hard. It’s true that it’s a long debate on subsidiarities and what each of the Member States of the European Union should deal with and what is the degree of implication.  Of course, usually, when problems occur, everyone is looking towards Brussels and I would really have wished that we would have had the money to step in, but we didn’t have the money, at European level, to step in for the liquidity crisis. So we had to ask the Member States. We put forward this flexible framework for State aid, to step in and help with liquidity. We had to protect the consumers while we were helping the companies with liquidity.  I heard several of you - and this is a floating idea going around - because it is a lesson learned, that what you do with the liquidity issue - if a huge amount of reimbursement or compensation would be asked for in case of cancellation. And I know there is this idea of a European fund. But it has to be in a budget and of course if the Member States would like to put money together for such a fund that’s one thing, on the other hand, with all the complicated discussions we have with the budget, with the MFF and everything, I haven’t seen any true appetite for creating new things at the European level.  We have to admit the fact that there are several - at national level - several schemes of guaranteeing these kind of packages and I think that here, this can be shared, and lessons learned by Member States should include also the fact that we cannot live without having a fund to guarantee all of this, or else it won’t work and the liquidity problem will be very difficult to solve.  There are, and probably you are right, we are thinking about this, that by using State aid, it might create disparities or imbalances in the competition in the market because of some Member States having a larger fiscal capacity to step in and help companies, others less. Then we feared creating an unbalanced situation for the future.  But that’s why, for example, we imagine that we proposed the solvency instrument, which would be aimed through the European Investment Fund, especially to step in and help, including by buying equity, those companies which were less helped and they would be in need of better help at the European level because they didn’t receive it at the national level.  So, we are advanced and we are engaged with the European financial institutions, with the EIB, to map and see how all the instruments we have put in place, which is quite an exhaustive list, can be used for various situations.  But anyway, our aim is to support those who are not helped and there are viable companies to be helped through this financial instrument at European level.  Transport workers are critical and I think from the very beginning, from the very first guidelines we put forward, we stressed the importance of them being treated as critical workers. So that’s why we didn’t have them put in quarantine when they’re crossing the border or one or the other. We, in all the guidelines we had for each mode, we insisted on the protective measures to be taken, especially for workers in transport. And I think this is the same for tourism and for the hospitality industry, because if the workers are getting sick or if they are not protected, it makes it a no-brainer.  So, I think everyone started that. We have to have them safe in order to have them providing services. So this is something I’m totally supporting. For small and medium-sized enterprises, we had put very quickly in place some instruments - by my colleagues, of course, in the Commission. For example, we have the SURE programme, which is an instrument to support, especially jobs. We put in EUR 100 billion in loans for SURE, especially to support short-time work schemes and to help the Member States to protect the jobs, the employees and the self-employed against the risk of dismissal and loss of income. Is it enough? I don’t know. We are of course in a continuous process of evaluating how all these proposals we have had are actually working.  And also, the idea behind the creation of the Next Generation EU fund is especially for the recovery, it is foreseen for recovery. We have been thinking of front-loading a lot of money at the beginning of next year or so from the MFF. So this will be an injection of capital and funds, which would translate ultimately into jobs and profitability for the companies in economic sectors.  I think this would cover more or less some of the issues you have raised. Of course, we would love to see simplified procedures.  There are also messages from you, which I will take to my colleagues in the college, so that we can further reflect on the situation.  While we are talking about the future, you will receive our strategy; you will see that we are aiming at putting it to consultation. By the end of the year, you will receive our strategy for sustainable and smart transport. I would add also resilient.  So that will be a great opportunity for us to look to the future. But the future cannot be but sustainable and smart. So also when we are talking about tourism, I think, for tourism itself, the future has to be sustainable, and this is a debate we will have to have, because I don’t want to forget about that.  There are also lots of schemes at regional level for tourism - because we saw, in relation to the situation with the crisis, it has a footprint, which is regional and the necessities and challenges are different from one region to another. So, through the regional funds, I know that financing was made available. Finally, let’s not forget that this is a health crisis. This is a health crisis. And the situation with the virus and the epidemiological situation is so different from one place to another. We need to trust. We need to make people understand that as long as we don’t have a vaccine or a viable treatment, there is a risk. And we have to continue to live with the virus.  So this is the situation and a most unfortunate one. But we need to adapt and try to be safe and restart the connectivity and the services in tourism and in transport.  Thank you very much for having me this evening and I’m looking forward to our next encounter.