Visegrad governments should use the opportunity of the crisis for structural changes and reforms in the labour market, education and healthcare. They should also look beyond the GDP and embrace green transformation.  

Visegrad countries will benefit from the Next Generation EU - the 750 bn worth stimulus post-pandemic recovery package - through its various mechanisms and facilities. Following infographic offers a breakdown of national allocations. Also, it shows to what extent the public in Visegrad countries appreciates common EU efforts in the reaction of pandemic and the (un)willingness to get vaccinated.

The Visegrad region has been hit hard by the pandemic and its economic fallout, but major funds are available to support the recovery and transition to towards a greener and more digitalised economy.

The process of drafting of national recovery plans under a difficult time constraints seems to be a handful for all of the Visegrad countries. The stakeholder involvement, streamlining their requests and transparency pose particular problems.

Listen to the podcast from the online event - Winners and Losers of the pandemic - the Visegrad outlook. 

The European Union, as the rest of the world, is facing an unprecedented healthcare challenge. The EU has been widely criticized for its slow initial reaction to the developing pandemic and, then, the slow vaccine roll-out in the bloc, seeing the Union lag behind the US, the UK or Israel in the immunization of the population.

Within the Recovery Plan in the field of digitization, the Slovak government emphasizes state´s IT. However, private companies affected by the corona crisis are wondering how the targeted support for industry - that is still lagging behind in digitization - will look like. They have now presented their own proposals to the government.

After tense weeks of negotiations, during which it looked like the cycling transport agenda will be once again overlooked, the Slovak Ministry of Transport and Construction announced that it will be part of National Recovery and Resilience Plan. However, support schemes for cycling need to change for it to be effective, as claimed by NGO and ministry officials.