EU ‘owes Italy an apology for initial virus response’
After a disappointing start, Europe’s collective response to the coronavirus crisis is now the “most impressive anywhere in the world”, according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The European Union was not ready when the pandemic first began sweeping the continent she told lawmakers in the European Parliament in Brussels yesterday.
In particular, she said, member states did not offer enough support to hard-hit Italy.
“It is right that Europe offers a heartfelt apology,” von der Leyen said, adding that this would only mean something if it came with a change in behaviour.
“Europe has done more in the last four weeks than it did in the first four years of the last crisis,” she said, in reference to the debt crisis starting in 2009.
The measures taken by the EU and its member states total more than €3tn ($3.26tn) so far.
The package agreed by EU finance ministers last week, worth €500bn, is a “big step in the right direction”.
These include a precautionary credit line for health spending from the eurozone bailout fund, an SME (small and medium enterprise) loan scheme from the European Investment Bank, and an initiative to pay wages of workers who would otherwise be laid off.
However, more action is needed, according to the top EU official.
While member states are embroiled in fierce debate about shared debt issuance – so-called coronabonds – the commission is pushing to overhaul the European Union’s next long-term budget, and is currently working on a new, more ambitious draft to put to EU leaders.
“The European budget will be the mother ship of the recovery,” von der Leyen said.
She has been lukewarm on the proposition of bonds so far.
European Union lawmakers convened yesterday in a special session to discuss the bloc’s response to the pandemic.
A number of representatives criticised unco-ordinated, onesided actions taken by individual member states at the beginning of the crisis – and insisted on more co-operation for the recovery phase.
Representatives from the Socialists group and the hard-left group GUE/NGL made the case yesterday for shared EU debt issuance.
“We don’t need a resigned shrug of the shoulders. We need real European solidarity in the form of corona-bonds,” GUE/ NGL co-leader Martin Schirdewan told DPA.
Italy fears using the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a bailout fund, could come with strings attached, requiring painful domestic reforms, as happened in the past.
This was would not be the case with bonds, says Schirdewan.
The EU representatives’ normal calendar of meetings is currently suspended, due to virusrelated restrictions.
Many attended the session online and all will cast their votes by e-mail.
The lawmakers are to vote on a resolution containing calls for greater protection for EU citizens in the face of the health crisis,
EU assistance to support member state health systems and a uniform strategy for the phasing out emergency measures.
The draft resolution also criticizes the behaviour of EU members Hungary and Poland, which have introduced sweeping emergency powers during the coronavirus crisis.
Voting will take place late in the evening, and the parliament’s president David Sassoli will announce the results today.