Exhausted EU leaders will cautiously try to get a summit on a huge coronavirus rescue package back on track yesterday after a furious row about grants for member states.
The 27 began to gather for another session after three days and nights of prolonged wrangling failed to agree a 750bn euro ($860bn) bundle of loans and grants to drag Europe out of the recession caused by the
pandemic.
Arriving for the session, France’s President Emmanuel Macron said he saw “the possible hopes of a compromise”, but added: “Nothing has been agreed yet, so I will remain
extremely cautious.”
Germany’s Angela Merkel was also careful not to inspire hopes of a rapid result.
“Last night... we put in place a framework for a possible agreement,” she said. “This is a step forward and it gives hope that an agreement can be reached today – or at least that an agreement is possible.”
European officials and diplomats all predicted another long night of negotiations. As a result, by midnight a meeting that was scheduled for only two days will become the longest EU summit since an 85-hour marathon in the French city of Nice in December 2000.
The wrangling pits a coalition of “frugals” – the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Denmark and Finland – which wants to cut the package back and impose strict rules on how it is used, against virus-ravaged powers like Italy and Spain seeking EU support.
France and Germany are backing efforts by European Council president Charles Michel to broker a compromise by cutting the grant portion of the deal to 390bn euros – down from his initial proposal of 500bn – and increasing the loan part.
But a European source said the new proposition might not reach Michel’s initial total target of 750bn target and that the host had managed to convince the frugals to start negotiating the recovery grants only by putting a “knife to their throats” in a showdown late Sunday.
“Until we agree to define the amount of the recovery fund, we can’t advance,” he said. France had been holding out for at least 400 billion euros in grants, already less than the 500bn in the first draft.
One European diplomat, pointing to longer and detailed negotiations ahead, said would “hopefully be the first day in four days” that the summiteers actually discuss the trillion euro EU budget.
After Sunday’s raucous dinner Macron clashed personally with the Netherlands’ Mark Rutte and Austria’s Sebastian Kurz, accusing them of putting the entire European project in danger through “egotism” and threatening to storm off if they do not listen to his and Merkel’s advice.
Rutte told reporters he was in Brussels to take care of his own country, not to befriend leaders and “go to each other’s birthdays” – Merkel turned 66 on Friday, the first day of the talks, and received gifts from some fellow leaders.
But he also said that, despite the tension, a deal was “very close”.
“We haven’t yet found the way through, and it could still fail, but I’m more optimistic than I was last night when, at one moment, I told myself, ‘It’s over’,” Rutte told reporters.
According to witnesses, at one point Macron thumped the table, berated Kurz for leaving to take a call and accused Rutte of behaving like former British premier David Cameron – who took a hard line at EU summits and ended up leading his country into a referendum to quit
the bloc.
Seeking to break the deadlock, Michel came up with a new proposal yesterday morning, which a diplomat said could be a “route to a deal” despite “smaller rebates for the frugals”.
In a promising sign for Michel’s new plan, Kurz tweeted his approval. “Tough negotiations have just come to an end, we can be very satisfied with today’s result,” he wrote.
But, speaking to journalists, he also reflected provocatively on Macron’s aggressive stance. “It’s understandable that some people, when they don’t get enough sleep, end up losing their cool,” he said.
Rutte wants member states to have a veto on national economic plans in order to oblige countries such as Italy and Spain to reform their labour and pensions markets – an effort angrily resisted by Rome. Michel has proposed a “super emergency brake” system to allow members to examine grant handouts.
Meanwhile, another obstacle is looming. Hungary’s hardline premier Viktor Orban vowed to prevent any agreement on efforts to tie EU spending to recipient countries’ respect for EU standards.
Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin departs from a meeting at the EU summit, amid the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) in Brussels yesterday.
