The Commission's first report, published on 22nd March 2021, found that the instrument supported more than 25 million people in 2020. This figure represents around 25% of the total number of people employed in the 18 beneficiary Member States. Moreover, it also showed that around 2.5 million firms that were hardly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic benefited from SURE, directly or indirectly, specially allowing them to retain workers. In this first report, the feedback from beneficiaries shows that SURE funds and support played an important role in the creation of their short-time work schemes while increasing their coverage and volume.
In the second report on 22nd September 2021, the European Commission found that SURE made significant progress in cushioning the severe socio-economic consequences and impacts felt from the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the national labour market measures supported by SURE funds were estimated to prevent 1.5 million unemployed people. Moreover, SURE also helped to effectively raise the unemployment subsidies among the Member States throughout the whole crisis. Consequently, the unemployment rates were significantly lower than they would have been otherwise during such a global financial crisis, especially considering the large decreasing Member States’ GDPs.
Finally, in this third report, the Commission confirmed the progress made with SURE funds towards its ultimate goal of protecting jobs and fostering the recovery from the impact of COVID-19. Analysing the results from previous reports, the 1.5 million people protected in 2020 was a key element of 2021’s economic recovery. In this sense, it was demonstrated that SURE strongly contributed to this collective success with its financial instruments and schemes that allowed firms to avoid massive firings, and helped the self-employed to be able to resume their activities as the COVID-19 situation improved. In order to understand the magnitude of SURE progress, this third report showed an outstanding total of €94.4 billion of financial assistance proposed by the Commission and granted by the Council to 19 Member States, of which almost €90 billion has been already disbursed. This includes top-up support that has been granted to seven Member States. Moreover, SURE is expected to provide an extra €5.6 billion package of financial measures to all Member States to confirm the consolidation of the overall program's success.
In light of the main results extracted from the 3 reports published to date, SURE has shown to be a crucial financial measure to offset the huge negative consequences that COVID-19 has caused all over the world. Furthermore, its forecast to expand the amount lent to Member States is poised to be the ultimate help from the SURE package to ensure and consolidate the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, it is also likely to play a key role in strengthening the European economy as a whole ahead of new challenges such as the war in Ukraine and rising inflation rates.
