Spain’s daily toll rises again amid EU exit plan fight

BRUSSELS: Spain recorded a second successive daily rise in coronavirus-related deaths with 757 fatalities, lifting its total toll to 14,555 on Wednesday, as a tussle continued among European Union governments over future economic measures to weather the pandemic.

EU officials clashed over aid conditions and proposals to borrow together to pay for the health crisis. Finance ministers from the 19 countries that use the euro haggled into the night for 16 hours by videoconference starting Tuesday. The meeting ended without a deal, and will resume on Thursday.

The number of new infections in Spain rose by 4.4% to 146,690, the health ministry said, as the country ramped up its testing.

But the rate of increase in both deaths and new infections on Wednesday was largely in line with that recorded the previous day, a nd hal f o f what was recorded just a week ago.

France reported fewer new coronavirus cases even as the total number of deaths rose sharply. The total cumber of cases rose by 3,777. Deaths rose by 1,417 to 10,328 as nursing home deaths continued to surge.

The uncertainty over EU exit strategy came as France’s central bank estimated its first-quarter gross domestic product to shrink 6% from previous quarter as a nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak shut down vast swathes of the economy. That would be the biggest contraction on a quarterly basis since World War 2, surpassing the previous record of -5.3% in the second quarter of 1968 when France was gripped by civil unrest, mass student protests and general strikes.

Similarly, experts warned that German economy, Europe’s biggest, would shrink by nearly 10% in the second quarter. “The corona pandemic will trigger a serious recession in Germany,” the six think tanks including Ifo, DIW and RWI said in their annual spring report.

The second-quarter plunge is twice as big as seen during the 2008-2009 financial crisis and marks the steepest fall since the institutes’ records began in 1970, the report noted.

The head of the European Research Council Mauro Ferrari has resigned, the EU confirmed on Wednesday. Ferrari, who only took the post only in January, told the Financial Times he was “extremely disappointed” by the EU’S response to the pandemic, which has hit Italy and Spain particularly hard.