EU cash for Spain
SPAIN is in line for €140 billion from the EU Covid-19 recovery fund following the hard-fought agreement reached among EU leaders during the early hours of Tuesday.
EU leaders finally clinched an unprecedented 1.82 trillion euro budget and coronavirus recovery fund, finding unity after four days and nights of fighting and wrangling over money and power in one of the EU’s longest ever summits.
To confront the biggest recession in its history, officials said the EU had a consensus on a €750 billion coronavirus fund to be sent as loans and grants to the countries hit hardest by the virus. That comes on top of the seven-year €1 trillion EU budget. At first the grants were to total €500billion, but the figure was lowered to €390 billion.
Just shy of being the longest EU summit in history, the 27 leaders huddled back in the main room of the Europa centre and bumped elbows and made jokes before giving the package the final approval.
What was planned as a twoday summit scheduled to end on Saturday was forced into two extra days by deep ideological differences among the leaders.
But overall, spirits were high early Tuesday since the talks hit rock bottom on Sunday night.
PM Pedro Sanchez insisted the adoption of an ambitious plan was required as the health crisis continued to threaten the continent.
The leaders mulled a proposal from the five wealthy northern nations - the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Denmark - that suggested a coronavirus recovery fund with €350 billion of grants and the same amount in loans.
The five nations, nicknamed ‘the frugals’, had long opposed any grants at all, while the EU executive had proposed €500 billion. The latest compromise proposal stands at €390 billion in grants. All nations agree in principle they need to band together but the five richer countries in the north want strict controls on spending.
Struggling southern nations like Spain and Italy say those conditions should be kept to a minimum.
The five have been pushing for labour market and pension reforms to be linked to EU handouts, and for a ‘brake’ enabling EU nations to monitor and, if necessary, halt projects that are being paid for by the recovery fund.
Rarely had a summit been as ill-tempered as this one, and it was the longest since a five-day meeting in France in 2000, when safeguarding national interests in institutional reforms proved a stumbling block.
However, considering every EU leader had the right of veto on the whole package, the joint commitment to invest and spend such funds can be seen as a success.
“We all can take a hit,” Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said. “After all, there are presidents among us.”
Despite bruising confrontations with Mrs Merkel, Mr Macron and his Italian counterpart, Giuseppe Conte, Mr Rutte maintained that ‘we have very good, warm relations’.