Heads of the European Union gathered in a room at the EU headquarters in Brussels equipped with hand sanitizers and disinfected headsets as they met face-to-face for a summit
PRAGUE/BRUSSELS/MADRID - European Union leaders’ views on a mass stimulus plan remained “diametrically different”, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Friday, after hours of talks on how to breathe life into economies ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.
“So far I don’t have the feeling we are getting closer to an agreement, I rather have the opposite feeling.” “If they want loans and even grants then I think it’s only logical that I can explain to people in the Netherlands...that in return those reforms have taken place,” Rutte said, in estimating chances for a deal at a modest fifty-fifty.
After initial elbow bumps between the 27 — all wearing face masks — and birthday gifts for Merkel and Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, tense meetings followed in the evening with Rutte and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The EU is already grappling with the protracted saga of Britain’s exit from the bloc and bruised by past crises, from the financial meltdown of 2008 onwards to feuds over migration.
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