This first edition, published on 12 October 2020, focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. EU regional and local authorities have been on the frontline in tackling the health crisis and keeping people safe. The report shows how they are also key to the economic recovery. We highlight the impact on the most vulnerable in our communities and present new public opinion data on these issues, polled less than a month before publication.
COVID-19: a regional health crisis
The new coronavirus swept through the European Union during the first half of 2020. Every country felt the impact on its health system. But a look at the numbers shows that the COVID-19 was very much a regional crisis.
Doubling deaths
The situation in the hospitals of the Italian region of Lombardia at the beginning of March, overcrowded, with a shortage of medical supplies, and hundreds of deaths per day, showed what devastating effect the new coronavirus can have on communities and their health systems.
Lombardia was clearly affected very heavily, but other regions soon followed. Assessing the COVID-19 situation accross the European Union for taking adequate measures to tackle the virus, proved to be difficult. Differences in testing strategies and in reporting on cases and hospitalisations made comparing numbers between countries difficult.
The measure that is probably best suited to show the impact of COVID-19 is excess mortality: the number of people that died in excess of what could be expected based on numbers from the same period in previous years. Here is what the map of the EU looks like for the excess mortality for the countries of the EU during March and April 2020.
Eastern countries have a much lower excess mortality than other countries. Hardest hit were Spain (47% more deaths than in previous years) and Italy (32%).
But as the region of Lombardia already showed, outbreaks tend to be very local, especially in the beginning of an outbreak. This map shows the regional excess mortality.
Lombardia had double the amount of deaths during March and April than in previous years, as had Madrid and Castilla La Mancha in Spain. Many regions registered an excess mortality above 50%, including Catalunya, Brussels, Stockholm and Ile de France and Alsace in France. Most eastern regions registered only very limited excess mortality, or even none at all.
So regions across the EU were impacted very unevenly by the virus.
Diverse health care landscape
The organisation of health care services differs widely between countries in the EU. In Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and France, health care is organised centrally: it's the national government that is responsible for health care expenditure. But in other countries, like Italy, Sweden and Spain, health care expenditure is managed by subnational authorities. So in these countries, which were amongst the most affected by the virus, local and regional authorities can expect serious strains on their health care expenditures.
Health care expenditure, health care policy and health care infrastructure vary widely over EU regions. The number of hospital beds per 100 000 inhabitants, for example, varies by a factor 10 between the region with the lowest and highest number of hospital beds.
The same variability can be seen in the share of health workers in total employment. This varies from less than 3% in regions in Romania and Poland, to more than 15% in some regions in Sweden and Norway.
In short: Asymmetric impact, local response
It is clear that the COVID-19 crisis in the EU is a crisis at the regional level. Health care in many EU countries is governed at the regional and local level, especially in some of the harder hit countries like Spain and Italy. The pandemic hit some EU regions very hard, with excess mortality of more than 100 % in some of them, and others hardly experiencing any impact, with big differences even within countries. On top of that comes the health infrastructure and available health care workers, which also show high variability between regions.
Looking ahead, the asymmetric impact of the COVID-19 crisis on regions' healthcare systems shows the need for place-sensitive responses in the EU.
The corona crash: why some regions suffered more
The devastating effect of lockdown measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic on the EU economy, is starting to get measured. Local socioeconomic characteristics determine the sensitivity of regional economies to restrictions on public life.
A bleak picture for most regions
In reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, EU countries set heavy restrictions on social and economic interactions in the first half of 2020. The duration and the severity of these "lockdowns" varied widely between countries and regions, but the economic impact was felt all across the continent.
A projection by the European Commission's Joint Research Center shows what the impact of the lockdowns could mean for regional economies. It's a bleak picture, with all regional economies affected considerably, and some regions projected to lose up to a quarter of their gdp.
National numbers from Eurostat confirm both the magnitude and variability of these numbers. During the second quarter of 2020, the EU gdp decreased by 12.1%, the biggest drop ever recorded. The Spanish economy was hit the hardest, with a steep drop of -17.4%, while the impact on the Finish economy was limited to -4.6%.
Impact = sensitivity x exposure
The difference in impact of lockdowns between countries and regions can be explained by two factors: exposure and sensitivity to lockdowns.
Exposure to lockdown measures can be estimated from the stringency and length of government restrictions, and from data on the reduction in hours worked collected by surveys. Although many lockdown measures were implemented at the local level, this estimate of exposure to lockdowns is only available at national levels.
It is clear that countries in the southern part of the EU were exposed more to lockdown measures than countries in the north.
Sensitivity to lockdowns is a much more local phenomenon. A closure of hotels, bars and restaurants will only have a minor impact on regions that don't have many of these businesses, while touristic regions will see a large part of their economy grind to a halt.
So a first component of lockdown sensitivity is the dependency on tourism, one of the sectors that suffered the most from lockdowns. The number of available tourism beds is a good proxy for this dependency.
The maps in the report shows clearly that coastal areas in the south have a higher sensitivity to lockdowns because of their dependency on tourism.
Examples of other sectors that are sensitive to lockdowns are the arts and entertainment sector, which was completely shut down in many regions, and manufacturing, which suffered from value chain disruptions. Sectors like agriculture, energy and public administration on the other hand, are much less sensitive to lockdowns.
So a region's sensitivity is also determined by the structure of its economy: if high risk sectors, like manufacturing, represent a big share in the economy, a lockdown will affect the region more. Agricultural regions will be affected much less. The following map shows the share of employment in high risk sectors for each region.
One of the lockdown measures taken by many countries, was the closure of borders. This brought international trade to a virtual standstill, while for many regions this is an important part of the economy. The dependency on international trade can be measured by the share of international exports and imports as share of regional gdp.
Next to these (mostly macroeconomic) components of regional sensitivity, microeconomic aspects (employment in small and medium enterprises, self-employment), social factors (poverty, youth unemployment) and institutional characteristics (national debt, quality of government) also determine regional sensitivity to lockdowns.
The 2020 "Regional and Local Barometer" report, quantified and weighted all these factors in order to calculate an overall sensitivity to lockdowns for all EU regions. The maps shows clearly that the potential impact of COVID-19 does not correspond to the usual urban/rural or centre/periphery divides. Southern and eastern regions are more vulnerable due to their high level of micro-enterprises and self-employed workers. Mediterranean and Alpine regions are at particularly high risk due to their reliance on tourism. The economies of a number of regions in central and eastern parts of the EU rely on international trade and supply chains. Central and northern regions in central, as well as individual southern regions, are also exposed to negative impact from COVID-19 due to a large share of employment in risk sectors.
In short: Local response
The impact of lockdowns as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic was severe in all EU countries and regions. But local socioeconomic characteristics determine the regional sensitivity to lockdown measures. Policies to mitigate the effects of lockdowns, and to prevent future ones, should therefore be implemented at the local level.
Public opinion survey: The coronavirus crisis and the role of regions and cities in the EU
Most citizens say giving local and regional authorities more influence in the EU will improve its ability to solve problems. Local and regional authorities remain the most trusted level of government overall, indeed the only level in which more than half Europeans trust.
Between 3 and 17 September 2020, Kantar carried out a public opinion survey on behalf of the European Committee of the Regions on the views of EU citizens on the coronavirus crisis and the role of regional and local authorities and - more generally - on whether regions and cities should have more influence in EU politics and polices. In short, results show that
- more Europeans trust regional and local authorities (52%) than they trust the EU (47%) and their national government (43%);
- similarly, regional or local authorities are more trusted (48%) than the EU (45%) and national governments (44%) to take, now and in the future, the right measures to overcome the economic and social impact of the coronavirus crisis;
- for both questions, there is a clear geographical pattern: Trust in the regional and local authorities is higher in northern and western EU countries; this pattern is similar for national governments but not for the EU, for which higher levels of trust in the EU can be found in most eastern Member States when compared to those of national governments;
- around two-thirds of Europeans think that regional and local authorities do not have enough influence on the decisions taken at the European Union level;
- Europeans would like their regional and local authorities to have more influence on the decisions taken at EU level; the most mentioned policies for more influence would be preferred are those related to health (45%), employment and social affairs (43%), and education, training and culture (40%).
- a clear majority of Europeans (58%) think that more influence of regional and local authorities would have a positive impact on the EU's ability to solve problems, and this is the majority view in all Member States.