adopted in December 2020 following the European Council ’ s agreement on 23 July 2020 .
What was unusual and novel about this experience was the establishment of a European recovery plan to support the European economy and the labour market , which led to investments of EUR 1 800 billion ( more than EUR 2 000 billion in today ’ s money ). This included NextGenerationEU , which contained a new EUR 672.5 billion transfer instrument , the Recovery and Resilience Facility , to foster investment and make Europe greener , more digital and more resilient . This was an extraordinary step forward in European integration ; the European Commission was able to finance itself on the markets , thanks to the issuing of European common debt , which allowed funds to be raised on the markets to finance common objectives .
NextGenerationEU constituted a new paradigm for the EU . Unprecedented additional measures on the economic and social fronts were essential to ensure that Member States had sufficient resources at their disposal to buffer the crisis . These included the suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact and the establishment of the Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency ( SURE ) instrument to safeguard jobs from the pandemic crisis , as well as the new framework on State aid rules . The EU had thus decided to accelerate , in a practical sense , an integration process that had seemed stagnant , if not in decline , after Brexit .
The Conference on the Future of Europe
The crisis forced unprecedented decisions , but it was clear to all that the constitutional instruments at the Union ’ s disposal were not up to the challenge . The Conference on the Future of Europe started on 9 May 2021 with precisely these premises . It represented
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