SOCIAL SECURITY : UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WOULD HAVE HELPED EU DURING CRISIS - STUDY.

• Position: 'The cost of non-Europe resulting from the absence of an unemployment insurance scheme for the euro area'

The existence of a European unemployment insurance scheme would have helped protect the member states hit hardest by the crisis, according to a study presented on 13 February to the European Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL). For the years 2008-2013, Spain, France, Greece and Portugal would have been the main beneficiaries of a European scheme with an estimated yearly cost of 61 billion. There also would have been an uninterrupted stabilisation effect in Greece and Spain.

With the economic and financial crisis, the EU has begun taking an interest in a European unemployment insurance scheme to serve as an automatic stabiliser in the eurozone, since the governments that share the same currency have lost the capacity to use budget stabilisers to deal with a recession. In its communication of 28 November 2012(1), the Commission discussed an insurance scheme in which "risks of economic shocks would be shared by all member states". A working group is studying the issue.

For the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and the Zentrum fur Europaische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW) - invited by EMPL to comment on the provisional findings of the study on 'The cost of non-Europe resulting from the absence of an unemployment insurance scheme for the euro area'(2) - such an EU scheme would have offered many advantages during the economic and financial crisis. "In the economic sphere, a European unemployment insurance scheme would lead to a coordination of efforts, help ease constraints and facilitate cross-border mobility. At political level, it would...