MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th May, 2020) The European Union as a bloc will endure the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic despite internal disagreements over the response, Russia's Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov said on Tuesday.
Experts began to speculate on the bloc's strength amid the pandemic after, in April, Germany's ex-foreign ministers, Joschka Fischer and Sigmar Gabriel, said that the long-term consequences of the pandemic might trigger the disintegration of the EU unless an economic support program akin to the Marshall Plan was created.
"I wouldn't view the pandemic as an event that means the beginning of the end for the EU. The European Union has experienced a big shock, but I think it is quite viable, at least for now, in order to claw its way out," Chizhov said during an online briefing at the Rossiya Sedognya multimedia press center.
The bloc continues to discuss mechanisms to respond to the financial and economic consequences of COVID-19, the envoy added.
Europe's economy has been severely affected by the pandemic. Earlier in the month, the European Commission said in its forecast that the eurozone's GDP would decline by 7.7 percent in 2020 due to the COVID-19 crisis and then grow again by 6.3 percent in 2021. Commenting on the projections, European Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni suggested that the bloc had entered the "deepest economic recession in its history."
