Before all focus shifted to the COVID-19 pandemic, Brussels' Green Deal sat near the top of the 2020 agenda, with its ambitious aim to transform Europe from a fossil-fuel burning economy into the world's first carbon-neutral continent by 2050. 

After dropping from view for a few months, one of the driving forces behind the $1.2 trillion plan believes the Green Deal can be the "catalyst" for the bloc's economic recovery.

"We need to prepare ourselves for a recovery that doesn't take us back into the old but brings us forward into the new world. And that is where the Green Deal is coming in," said Diederik Samsom, the head of the European Commission's climate cabinet.

Speaking at a virtual European Policy Centre event, Samsom said the plan could be easily reprioritized to focus on projects that would put people back to work immediately and spur much-needed growth.

One idea, he said, was to launch a renovation wave, refitting about 200 million homes and buildings to make them more energy efficient. It's a job usually done by small- and medium-sized companies, many of which have been without work for weeks. 

He also proposed cutting a deal with the automobile industry, which has been haemorrhaging billions of dollars as factories lie idle and car sales plummet. 

"We could save them, we will save them, we will save those hundreds of thousands of jobs," he said. "If we're investing public money into automobile companies, why not speed up your investment into the electrical car future? And at the same time, we might speed up our investments for charging infrastructure."

Samsom said the Green Deal could be the Marshall Plan officials in Brussels have been calling for, referring to the post-World War II rebuilding effort which brought Europe back to economic life.  

Some expect a post-pandemic Europe to face an even bleaker economic landscape than that in 1945. 

"It is now quite clear that the EU has entered the deepest economic recession in its history," said European commissioner for the economy, Paolo Gentiloni, as he presented the spring economic forecast on Wednesday. 
Brussels now expects the eurozone economy to shrink a record 7.7 percent this year. A rebound is expected in 2021, but it will fall well short of a full recovery. 

The Commission is still working on its coronavirus recovery plan, which will be closely linked to the EU's next long-term budget. But calls are growing louder for this plan to include ways to speed up Europe's green transformation. 

Check out The Pandemic Playbook, CGTN Europe's major investigation into the lessons learnt from COVID-19