A stand-off between European Union (EU) leaders at a summit in Brussels on Saturday threatened to derail plans for a massive stimulus fund to breathe life into their coronavirus-hammered economies.
“We are in an impasse now. It is more complex than what was expected,” Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in a video on Facebook as the 27 European Union leaders neared the end of a second day of talks. “There are many issues that remain unresolved.”
The budget commissioner of the bloc’s executive reminded the leaders – who wore masks and kept their distance from each other – that COVID-19 was still among them and they needed to act.
“Just a solemn reminder: the Corona crisis is not over: infections on the rise in many countries,” Johannes Hahn tweeted. “High time to reach an agreement which allows us to provide the urgently needed support for our citizens plus economies!”
With the pandemic dealing Europe its worst economic shock since World War Two, leaders gathered on Friday to haggle over a proposed $856 billion recovery fund and a 2021-27 EU budget of more than 1 trillion euros.
But a group of wealthy and fiscally “frugal” northern states led by the Netherlands have blocked progress in the first face-to-face EU summit since spring lockdowns across the continent.
They favour repayable loans rather than free grants for the hard-hit indebted economies mostly on the Mediterranean rim, and they want control over how the funds are spent.
Hopes for an agreement grew earlier on Saturday when the summit’s chairman, European Council President Charles Michel, proposed revisions to the overall package that were designed to assuage the Dutch concerns.
Under the new proposals, the portion of grants in the recovery fund would be reduced to 450 billion euros from 500 billion and an ‘emergency brake’ on disbursement would be added.
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