BRUSSELS: EU leaders were making progress on Monday after three days of haggling over a plan to revive economies throttled by the ¬COVID-19 pandemic, but Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte warned the discussions could still fall apart. EU summit chairman Charles Michel urged the 27 leaders of the European Union to achieve “mission impossible” and reach an agreement.
Michel reminded the EU leaders that more than 600,000 people had now died as a result of the coronavirus around the world, and it was up to them to stand together in the face of an unprecedented crisis. “My hope is that we reach an agreement and that the headline … tomorrow is that the EU has accomplished mission impossible,” the European Council President said at their third dinner in a row at the Brussels conference center. “That is my heartfelt wish … after three days of non-stop work.”
The leaders are at odds over how to carve up a vast recovery fund designed to help haul Europe out of its deepest recession since World War II, and what strings to ¬attach for countries it would benefit. After the adjournment was announced both the Austrian Chancellor Sebestian Kurz and Rutte said progress was being made at the talks. “Tough negotiations have just come to an end and we can be very satisfied with today’s result. We will continue in the afternoon,” said Kurz. Rutte said talks had been close to failing, but that chairman Michel was now working on a new EU compromise proposal.
“We are not there yet, things can still fall apart. But it looks a bit more hopeful than at the times were I thought last night that it was over,” Rutte told reporters in Brussels. Diplomats had said the leaders may abandon the summit and try again for an agreement next month if talks failed. On the table is a 1.8 trillion euro ($2.06 trillion) package for the EU’s next long-term budget and recovery fund. The 750 billion euros proposed for the recovery fund would be raised on behalf of them all on capital markets by the EU’s executive European Commission, which would be a historic step toward greater integration, and then funneled mostly to hard-hit Mediterranean rim countries.
European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde said it would be better for the leaders to agree an “ambitious” aid package than to have a quick deal at any cost. European Union (EU) heavyweight Germany said on Monday that national leaders split over a massive coronavirus stimulus plan had sketched a framework agreement that could bring a successful end to a fraught summit dragging into its fourth day.
Slow to coordinate their initial response to the outbreak and already weakened by Britain’s departure, the EU’s 27 nations could redeem themselves with an economic aid plan that would show Europeans they can step up to a crisis and are united. But old grievances between fiscally-frugal northern nations less affected by the pandemic and more indebted southern European nations like Italy and Greece, whose economies are in freefall, have made progress painfully slow. Ahead of the 1400 GMT restart, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said leaders now had a new basis for a deal on a 750 billion euro ($858 billion) recovery fund and the bloc’s next 2021-2027 common budget, worth around 1.1 trillion euros.
“We worked out a framework for a possible agreement last night after long negotiations,” she told reporters, arriving for the fourth day of talks in Brussels in what could be the bloc’s longest ever summit. “This is progress and gives hope that an agreement can be reached today.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was also upbeat about the chances of a deal. With talks going past midnight for two consecutive nights, French President Emmanuel Macron lost patience in the early hours of Monday and banged his fist on the table in frustration at “sterile blockages” by the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Austria, two diplomats said.
–The Daily Mail-Global Times
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