Students following the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Module course entitled Communicating the EU to the students through the simulation games simulated EU measures in response to COVID-19 pandemic.

After weeks of completion of the theoretical part, the students following the course, first were assigned into the European Commission’s Coronavirus Response Team and tasked to develop the response of the EU based on the following 5 policy areas: crisis management; health issues; border-related issues; mobility; and macroeconomic issues.

Following the discussion of the proposal made by the European Commission’s Coronavirus Response Team, the students simulated the European Council meeting on EU measures in response to COVID-19 pandemic.

The online meeting of the heads of state/governments was followed by heated debates over the size and distribution of the proposed Economic Recovery Fund. While the Southern European countries advocated for a bigger size economic package of the EU in order to soften the economic impact of COVID-19 and re-opening of borders for the summer period in order to revive the tourism industry, the Frugal 4 countries (Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden) rejected the proposal to mutualize the future debts of member-states and raised their concern on the decline of democracy in member states, particularly in Poland and Hungary.

In their turn, Polish and Hungarian leaders dismissed accusations from other EU member-states on the deterioration of democratic principles in these countries during the COVID-19 pandemic and urged for more funds in the multiannual financial framework in order to benefit from allocated cohesion funds.

Despite the fact that the leaders failed to agree on Economic Relief Package, they endorsed continuing the negotiations.

As a next stage, the students following the course simulated the European Parliament’s Plenary and discussed the European Commission’s recommendations on the above-mentioned 5 policy areas.