Welcome to In Conversation, the regular podcast of Encompass. Go to InCompass-HythEurope.com for free access to all our podcast to date. This is Paul Adamson. I'm in conversation with Eric Jones. Eric Jones is Director of European and Eurasian Studies and Professor of European Studies

and International Political Economy at the School of Advanced International Studies,

SICE at Johns Hopkins University in Bologna.

Eric, we're going to talk not about the public health response to the EU to the coronavirus

and COVID-19, but to the

financial economic response of member states to the coronavirus, and you've been writing a lot about that,

including a very lengthy essay for my website in Compass recently, which I thank you.

I think of me as a kind of a mature student, a very mature student,

and you're the professor. These are conversations, but you may have to explain some of the

technical language to me, okay, as we go along. So I warn you in advance, you may have to be

a bit more pedagogic than you would normally be. This is your day job, you're a professor.

So tell me why the Eurogroup, the member state finance ministers

that we loan to the single currency,

I've been meeting all week without any kind of conclusion.

Why is there such an impasse and what have they been trying to achieve?

Well, Paul, first, thanks a lot for having me on your show.

And I think the easiest way to think about this is that the finance ministers need to figure out some way to spend an awesome amount of money to respond to this big shutdown that we're in right now.

I mean, you're talking from your living room,

I'm talking from my study, and nobody's doing any proper work.

As a consequence, what we've got to do is figure out some way to replace incomes

and stimulate economic performance,

and the amount of money is just jaw-dropping.

...