The pandemic should catalyze a more permanent rethinking of European welfare states given the inequalities it revealed for the most vulnerable groups

BRUSSELS — Since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, European governments have invested heavily in emergency measures to save jobs and rekindle battered economies. In 2020, EU Member States allotted around 8 percent of overall GDP to fiscal support linked to the COVID-19 pandemic—considerably more than during the 2008-09 financial crisis—and agreed on the largest stimulus package ever financed by the bloc.