EU Leaders Remain Deadlocked on Coronavirus Recovery Plan
July 19 2020 - 6:37PM
Dow Jones News
By Laurence Norman
BRUSSELS -- Negotiations among the European Union's 27 leaders
for recovery plans worth EUR1.8 trillion ($2.06 trillion) remained
deadlocked late Sunday, leading to tense exchanges and fears of a
breakdown.
After three days of talks to agree a proposed spending package
to lift Europe's economy out of a coronavirus-sparked slump, EU
leaders were still divided over the size of the final plan, how
much of it should be available in grants and some of the conditions
attached.
Failure to reach a deal could spark a negative financial markets
response, weeks after European leaders said there was a basic
consensus around the outlines of the plan. A number of top EU
leaders have said a deal must be in place before the summer
break.
EU leaders had started their first face-to-face summit in five
months on Friday morning, hoping to agree by Saturday evening a
multiyear budget plan pitched at over EUR1 trillion and an economic
recovery plan that Brussels believed should be EUR750 billion
strong.
The plans are intended to prop up the economies worst affected
by coronavirus, like Italy, Spain and Greece, without sending their
already high debt levels soaring further, allowing them to increase
crisis spending now. The recovery plan would be funded by the
European Commission raising hundreds of billions of euros of debt
in the markets, an unprecedented step.
However the rifts over the size of the recovery plan and how
much of it would be made up of grants proved too strong to wrap up
on time, with the Netherlands leading a group of countries who
wanted to limit handouts, and France, Germany and southern
countries badly hit by the health crisis pushing to maintain the
proposed EUR500 billion in grants.
By Sunday evening, the Netherlands was pushing for a EUR700
billion recovery fund, half of which would be available in grants.
France, Germany, Italy and Spain were insisting that grants must be
no lower than EUR400 billion.
The leaders were also divided over other issues. There was
discord over a push to reduce budget funding for countries judged
to be backsliding on democratic standards. As talks ground on,
rules about social distancing and wearing masks seemed to slip as
leaders huddled into side rooms for intense negotiations. The
trillion-euro strong budget will cover EU spending on projects
across the bloc from 2021-2027.
On the recovery plan, the Netherlands, a major net payer into EU
coffers, has insisted that member states should be able to block
payments if a country wasn't delivering on its economic reforms
agenda, a position that has met strong resistance from Italy.
During Sunday evening's dinner exchanges, Dutch Prime Minister
Mark Rutte came under fire from other leaders, according to
officials observing the talks.
"You might be a hero in your homeland for a few days, but after
a few weeks you will be held responsible before all European
citizens for blocking an adequate...response," Italian Prime
Minister Giuseppe Conte, according to two officials.
Other officials involved said negotiations looked likely to
drift late into the night.
"We need it to get dark" before a deal is struck, said one
senior diplomat.
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 19, 2020 18:22 ET (22:22 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.