Towards a Resilience Doughnut

For a long time, the Commission’s objectives mainly focused on market integration, economic growth, competitiveness and efficiency. With the Foresight Report, the Commission has initiated an important discussion on the objectives of policymaking in the EU following the Covid-19 pandemic – focused on resilience.

A new paradigm centred around resilience entails a shift of perspective. Rather than looking at policy objectives, resilience asks what capacities are needed to ensure key societal objectives are met when responding to shocks. A propserous Europe is not only sustainable and fair. Above all it is a Europe that has capacities to ensure wellbeing and environmental protection in times of change – through strong social security systems, social and technical creativity and innovation or through robust value chains. The Covid-19 has certainly shown the importance of having such capacities.

To make mainstreaming resilience a success story, it is crucial to get diverse groups of stakeholders on board. The Foresight Report was an important first step. With this brief we provide ideas on how to effectively mainstream resilience through an integrative operationalisation around the Doughnut Economics framework and a comprehensive mainstreaming strategy. The paper is based on discussions of the High-level Conference “Leapfrogging to a resilient Europe”.