Protecting the EU economy from shocks wrought by the war in Ukraine is crucial for the protection of democracy in the bloc, European Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said on Monday.
"Both the pandemic and the war in Ukraine are huge external shocks with potentially different outcomes across the EU," Gentiloni said after a meeting of the eurozone finance ministers in Brussels.
"We all know that the resilience of our economy is crucial to protect our citizens, but also to protect our democracies, because this is what is at stake now - it's in this confrontation," he said.
At the top of the agenda at the ministers' meeting on Monday was how member states could mitigate the economic blowback from the war and the sanctions subsequently imposed on Russia.
The European Union needed a unified response to the economic fallout of the Russian invasion like the bloc's cooperation to agree a recovery plan from the Covid-19 pandemic, Gentiloni said.
With EU member states vulnerable to different degrees, tackling the "risk of divergence" was essential to move forward, he said.
Despite the economic recovery the bloc had experienced since the height of the pandemic, the 2022 economic growth estimate for the EU was "no longer realistic" in light of the war, Gentiloni said ahead of the meeting.
In February, the commission revised an economic growth estimate issued in 2021 from 4.3% down to 4% citing rising inflation, the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant and supply chain disruptions.
The war in Ukraine, which is now in its third week, is posing further economic risks to the bloc such as rising energy costs, higher commodity prices and rising inflation, Gentiloni said.
The Italian EU commissioner also said the fiscal burden on EU member states to tackle the costs of rising energy prices and shelter people fleeing the war in Ukraine are set to weaken growth.
The commissioner said another economic forecast in May from the EU executive would bring greater certainty.
The EU can secure the bloc's economic recovery "if we react strongly and rapidly as we did during the Covid crisis," Gentiloni said.
Also speaking at the meeting in Brussels, Dutch Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag said the bloc would be dealing with the macroeconomic impact of the war for a long time, but said that recession was not on the cards in the short term.
"To talk of a recession is to talk yourself into a recession," she said.
