Insults, flaring tempers mark EU summit
BRUSSELS — Weary European Union leaders finally were closing in on an unprecedented $2.1 trillion budget and coronavirus recovery fund early Tuesday, somehow finding unity after four days and as many nights of fighting and wrangling over money and power in one of their longest summits ever.
To confront the biggest recession in its history, officials said the EU had as good as a consensus on a 750 billion euro 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 euro EU budget. At first the grants were to total 500 billion euros, but the figure was brought down to 390 billion euros.
“There were extremely tense moments,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. “But on content, things have moved forward.”
One EU official close to the talks said that “we are as good as there.”
A diplomat from a big EU nation said the major issues had been dealt with, but that some member states were looking for final small concessions in the sevenyear budget. A diplomat from another nation concurred but said such issues could still take a few hours. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were still ongoing.
“An extraordinary situation demands extraordinary efforts,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said as the leaders pushed on with one of the bloc’s longest summits ever. What was planned as a two-day summit scheduled to end Saturday was forced into two extra days by deep ideological differences among the 27 leaders.
Overall, spirits were high early Tuesday since the talks hit rock bottom Sunday night.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, defending the cause of a group of five wealthy northern nations — the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Denmark — was on the brink of securing limits to costs and imposing strict reform guarantees on any rescue plan for needy nations. It was the focal point of the marathon talks that started on Friday morning.