We don’t yet know what the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will be. We can’t be sure how long it will take, nor how many will get sick. There are plenty of estimates flying around, but the picture is still evolving as more data comes in.

It is already clear, however, that the economic impact of COVID-19 will be enormous. Comparisons are already being drawn with the Great Depression of the 1930s (though, again, it’s too early to say for sure). Governments are implementing economic measures, such as wage guarantees and “helicopter money”) that would have been unthinkable even weeks ago.

What will the impact of the crisis be on unemployment and poverty across Europe? We conducted two interviews in early-February (i.e. before the full scale of the COVID-19 crisis was clear) about poverty in the European Union. The interviews don’t address the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, but feel free to do so in the comments below and we’ll look for policymakers and experts to respond.

What do our readers think? We had a comment sent in from Julia, who worries there is “so much poverty” across Europe right now. What do the figures say? How much poverty is there in Europe, and is it growing?

To get a response, we spoke to Zsolt Darvas, Senior Fellow at the think-tank Bruegel, who has researched the EU’s efforts to meet its Europe 2020 poverty targets. What would he say to Julia?

The very first question is: what do we mean by poverty? Because, if you compare the living standards of the European Union to the living standards in Africa, South Asia, or Latin America, then people who are relatively poor in Europe still have a much better life than people who are poor elsewhere.

But that doesn’t mean that there are no people in Europe who really lack resources – there are a number of very poor people in Europe, in many countries, mostly in the Central and Eastern European Member States, in Greece, in Italy, Southern Europe in general. But there are also some such people also in more advanced countries like France or Germany.

If you look at the trends, then what we see is relatively little change in most countries, but what you also see is that the Central and Eastern European members of the European Union are converging with Western Europe at a rather rapid pace, and the number of poor people in these countries is actually declining.

So, I think from the perspective of poverty, what’s happening in Central and Eastern Europe is good news, but what’s happening, let’s say, in Italy or in Greece is really bad news, because in the Southern European countries, more and more people face major, major constraints on their living, incomes are falling. So, I think the developments are not universal in Europe but should be differentiated between, let’s say, the East and the South.

For another perspective, we also put Andreu’s comment to Dietmar Bartsch, a member of the German Bundestag and co-leader of the leftwing Die Linke party’s parliamentary group. What would he say?

Yes, poverty is also increasing in Europe. This is mainly due to the fact that unemployment is high in many countries; over 12 million people are unemployed in the euro area. A third of all employees in Europe work in underpaid and unsecured conditions, especially women. There are certainly even bigger problems in Mali and Bangladesh, but also in Europe the gap is widening, in almost all countries.

The European project must not only be a project of the business elites, it must also be a social, cultural, and, of course, a peace project. We need Europe-wide social standards and must invest in jobs and thus in the future. We need minimum wages and stronger unions so that the division of society and Europe does not continue. It is important for our own sake that we take measures: large companies have to be taxed uniformly across Europe – Google’s and Facebook’s huge assets in particular have to be taxed uniformly and small and medium-sized incomes have to be relieved.

Long-story-short: even in the developed industrial countries, the gap is widening, there is poverty. Even in rich Germany there are homeless people, there are children in poverty, there are pensioners who have to collect bottles. A society cannot ‘afford it’.

Is poverty growing in Europe? Why hasn’t the EU met its Europe 2020 poverty reduction targets? Let us know your thoughts and comments in the form below and we’ll take them to policymakers and experts for their reactions!

IMAGE CREDITS: Photo by Mihály Köles on Unsplash; PORTRAIT CREDITS: Bartsch (c) DBT