Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1343350
6 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 24 FEBRUARY 2021 NEWS EUROPE CUTTING economic support policies prematurely could harm the post-COVID-19 re- covery, the International Mon- etary Fund managing director has warned. Kristalina Georgeva, howev- er, said fiscal policies should be accompanied by structural reforms to make economies greener and more digital. She was addressing a panel of experts that discussed EU economic governance and measures to protect and help economies affected by COV- ID-19. The event was organ- ised by the European Parlia- ment. Georgeva also warned of the dangers of uneven recovery among different countries, even within the EU. European Parliament Pres- ident David Sassoli said the crisis brought on by the pan- demic, "stemmed from an eco- nomic system heavily based on the exploitation of crucial resources". He said this high- lighted the unsustainability of such an economic model. Sassoli said EU funding and reconsideration of econom- ic governance instruments would be important factors in the bloc's recovery and trans- formation. European Council President Charles Michel argued that "EU funds and policies craft- ed to deal with the pandemic must be designed around the needs of the young genera- tion, which has suffered con- siderably". European Commission Pres- ident Ursula von der Leyen said the potential of the Next Generation EU funds could be integral for shaping greener, more digital, and more inclu- sive EU economies. She said national parliaments must play a constructive role in turning these EU funds into local growth. The NextGenerationEU is a €750 billion temporary recov- ery instrument to help repair the immediate economic and social damage brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. The EU's long-term budget, coupled with NextGener- ationEU, is said to be the largest stimulus package ev- er financed through the EU budget. A total of €1.8 trillion is proposed to be given out to rebuild a post-COVID-19 Eu- rope. Fiscal policies supporting the post-pandemic recovery should be accompanied by reforms, IMF chief warns Kristalina Georgieva, IMF Managing Director LABOUR MEP Cyrus Engerer has been appointed as lead ne- gotiator within the Socialists and Democrats on an upcoming resolution which declares all of the European Union an LGBTIQ Freedom zone. The resolution follows major backlash surrounding contro- versy across Poland, and more recently Hungary, which have declared themselves free from so-called 'LGBTIQ ideology' or have adopted 'Regional Charters of Family Rights', discriminating in particular against women, sin- gle-parent and rainbow families. "LGBTIQ persons are not an ideology. We are people with fundamental human rights and no one, not even a Member State of the European Union can take our fundamental human rights away from us." The measures in Poland and Hungary call for local govern- ments to refrain from taking any action to encourage tolerance of LGBTIQ people or provide any funding to NGOs working to promote equal rights or anti-dis- crimination measures education or in any other way supporting LGBTIQ people. "The discrimination that LGB- TIQ persons face in a number of Member States is not a domestic issue," Cyrus Engerer said. "It is a European issue that goes against the Charter of Funda- mental Human Rights, instills fear in a number of people and trumps upon the freedom of movement principle that the European Union is built upon. Diversity and the protection of human rights are core European values." "The European Institutions cannot continue to close a blind eye when it comes to the atro- cious treatment of LGBTIQ persons by EPP Prime Minister Victor Orban and the Polish PiS Government. The EU must not continue to tolerate these gov- ernments' implementation of their politics of hatred", he reit- erated Engerer said it was an honour and a privilege for him to have been handpicked for this histor- ic task, a few months following his election to the European Par- liament. "What we did in Malta over the past years now needs to be extended to the rest of the Union and beyond." Cyrus Engerer to lead negotiations in EU resolution on LGBTIQ rights Cyrus Engerer