EU holds first face-to-face summit since COVID-19 outbreak
Saeed Pourreza
PRESS TV, London
European Union leaders have gathered in Brussels for their first face-to-face summit since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the agenda: thrashing out a deal on a post-coronavirus economic recovery package. But expectations of a deal remain low.
Elbow taps and head nods as masked EU leaders meet in the Belgian capital. They all agree that a common fiscal response to the crisis is needed, but what they don’t agree on is how the money, that economic recovery package should be distributed among the bloc’s 27 member states.
The European Commission has proposed a recovery fund of 750 billion Euros and has backed a joint Franco-German motion that most of the money, 500 billion of it, be dished out as grants to the member states whose economies were worst hit by COVID-19. Also at stake: the trillion-euro EU budget, also known as the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) at stake.
If agreed upon, the recovery plan would be financed by a common debt, a first for the EU. But that has already led to cracks appearing in the bloc’s unity. Italy and Spain, perhaps the less solvent countries, are all for it, but they’re facing opposition from the so-called "Frugal Four", that’s Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands-- a sign of how divided the bloc has become.
There is also pressure to whittle down the size of the 750-billion-euro fund, threatening the revival of companies and jobs post-lockdown. France’s president says the meeting is a moment of truth and ambition for Europe:
Earlier this month, the European commission said the Europe's economy would contract more sharply this year and take longer to recover from the coronavirus pandemic than previously expected, piling pressure on EU leaders to get over their differences.
The Brussels meeting is due to continue on Saturday but EU leaders may need longer to reach a deal. That against the possibility of a second surge of COVID-19 infections as eurozone economic activity picks up and lockdowns are lifted.
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