During the last weeks, the European Commission has been proposing a number of innovative mechanisms to help fight off the Coronavirus crisis in Europe and the Member States. Indeed, extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. One of the ambitious initiatives announced lately was the so-called SURE programme, the Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency.   Announced on April 2nd SURE -a solidarity instrument to finance increases in national public expenditure to preserve employment, most notably via short-time work in affected sectors and companies-  would represent a total of €100 billion would be made available by the EU to the Member States in the form of favourable loans.   

While the SURE programme is planned to be tied to labour market impacts of the Corona crisis and is scheduled to be of temporary nature, its objective and rationale is in fact similar to a permanent European Unemployment Reinsurance Scheme which the European Commission has already been working on prior to the current crisis and which will likely remain on the table thereafter as well.    

In its proposal, the European Commission suggests that the EU provide loans backed by joint Member State guarantees to the individual Member States. These Member States would then benefit from the EU’s strong credit rating and low borrowing costs.  

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