EU leaders have agreed to create a fund that could raise at least 1 trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) to rebuild regional economies ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.
"This fund shall be of a sufficient magnitude, targeted towards the sectors and geographical parts of Europe most affected, and be dedicated to dealing with this unprecedented crisis," leaders of the 27 EU countries said in a statement after they met via video conference on Thursday.
Asked by reporters how much could be raised, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said:"This has to be looked at thoroughly ... but we are not talking about billion[s], we are talking about trillion[s]." The EU response, together with stimulus efforts worth several hundred billion euros already agreed at national level, amounts to a huge effort to prevent the region's deep recession turning into a 1930s-style depression.
Differences remain over how the fund should operate, in particular whether it should provide loans or grants to the hardest-hit countries such as Italy and Spain. Grants, or direct money transfers, would imply a degree of debt sharing that states such as the Netherlands, Austria and Germany have long resisted."The common market today benefits certain states or regions that are the most productive in Europe because they produce goods that they can sell in other regions.
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