Faced with a huge increase in the number of COVID-19 cases, by now all EU governments have undertaken strategies of varying degrees to ‘flatten the curve’ – to reduce the rate of growth of the pandemic in order to avoid a collapse of European healthcare systems. This column, taken from the recent Vox eBook, proposes a €500 billion ‘bazooka’ to fight the virus, stabilise the European economy, and protect its jobs while the economy is in the ‘freezer’. It also discusses how to finance this package.