Coordinating the easing of lockdown restrictions across Europe: a major economic challenge

In order to be fully effective from an economic perspective, the easing of lockdown restrictions across Europe must be coordinated. Economies have become interdependent due to the expansion of cross-border value chains, particularly in industrial sectors. In this article, the authors examine the scale of potential losses resulting from uncoordinated health policies. These évaluations shed light on the consequences of the current situation, in which some countries remain in lockdown whilst others are restarting industrial production. They also help to anticipate the difficulties ahead should second waves of the pandemic force certain countries to place their working population back into lockdown. A strict lockdown in Germany, for example, would lead to a fall in car production among its European neighbours, of around 9 per cent in Poland and 3 per cent in France, according to our simulations. Finally, the authors highlight the varying effects across different industrial sectors and countries, focusing here solely on the European continent.