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Keynote address given yesterday by President von der Leyen at the Brussels Economic Forum via videoconference.

Distinguished guests from Europe and beyond,

Dear colleagues and friends,

Welcome to this very special edition of the Brussels Economic Forum. It is a special edition because for the first time, all keynote speakers of this forum are women. Let me thank Angela Merkel, Jacinda Ardern, Christine Lagarde, and all the speakers for joining us today. And it is a special edition also because Europe's economy is finally back on track. Allow me to start with a few numbers.

In our Spring Economic Forecast, we projected our economy to grow by 4.2% this year, and by 4.4% in 2022. And the numbers are looking better and better as we go through the year. This means that in 18 months from now, all 27 Member States will be back on track, recovered from the crisis. No one expected this just a few months ago. But it is not by chance. This is the result of the policy decisions we took since the very early days of the pandemic. And they have paid off.

I would like to mention two of them. The first is our work on vaccines. Vaccination is now allowing our countries and our economies to reopen. And the second factor is the unprecedented economic stimulus measures that we have put together at the European level and at the national level.

So to my first point, our work on vaccination. Today, more than 60% of European adults have received at least one shot, and 41% are fully vaccinated. This is good, but we all know that we are not out of the woods yet. We also have to support our neighbours and we have to support the rest of the world. Because we will only be able to turn this page when we have reached immunity worldwide.

Now, on my second point, the economic outlook. We have learnt our lessons of the great financial crisis of 2008. So in the early days of this crisis, we immediately enabled Member States to take action – through the general escape clause, for example, or through the Temporary state aid Framework, and the full flexibilisation of the EU budget. In parallel, we worked on the first European initiative to finance short-time work – we called it SURE. SURE supported almost 30 million workers in Europe last year, saving jobs and companies. And all that was about repairing.

Now, for the long-term, the recovery, we also started working one year ago on NextGenerationEU. Our package of EUR 800 billion – in today's prices – is the biggest recovery package in Europe since the Marshall Plan. Two weeks ago, the Commission issued bonds to finance NextGenerationEU. It was a big success, seven times oversubscribed. With that, we are ready to start disbursing the pre-financing. In other words, the funds will start flowing to Member States and into our economy already in July. It is a first, it is unprecedented, and it is precisely what Europe needs right now.

Because with NextGenerationEU, we are reshaping our continent for decades ahead. We are digitising our economies, as we have never done before. And we are making the European Green Deal a reality. We are equipping our societies to be stronger and to be more resilient. The impact of these investments will be very tangible. NextGenerationEU, alone, will boost our economy by 2% of GDP.

But numbers only tell part of the story. The EUR 800 billion from NextGenerationEU are there to serve a purpose, a vision of the continent we want to build. We are not just bouncing back to pre-crisis level, but we are bouncing forward into the future.

In the last two weeks, I have started visiting our Member States. And I have already seen what change NextGenerationEU can bring to our economies. For example, in Greece, NextGenerationEU will create 5G corridors and invest in high-speed broadband infrastructure to connect the whole country. Or in Denmark, I visited an electrolyser that will use power from windmills and biomass to produce clean hydrogen. The project will receive funding from NextGenerationEU, and it will start producing clean hydrogen by the end of the year, and it will fuel zero-emission transport in the Copenhagen area.

Or, for example, in Luxembourg, I met quantum experts who are working on a new technology for safe communications via satellite. This will protect our data flows from cyberattacks. And it is a project that can help create jobs, different jobs, in many other EU countries, and strengthen Europe's tech sovereignty. These examples – and many, many more – show with NextGenerationEU, we are doing more than just increase our GDP. We are building a new economy – digital, circular and sustainable.

So this is just the beginning. We have a long, exciting road ahead of us. NextGenerationEU is the recovery Europe needs now and for the future. So let us make it a success, let us do that together. And again, thank you very much. And again, welcome to the Brussels Economic Forum.

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