As usual, the agreement between member countries to set the conditions of the new budget was sealed in the early hours of Thursday. Thus, the ministers of Economy of the single currency (Eurogroup) agreed that a maximum of 20% of their funds will be set aside to help countries cope with a specific crisis situation by financing their reforms and investments.

Meanwhile, the remaining 80% of the funds will be distributed among the Nineteen according to their population and taking into account the per capita GDP of each partner regardless of the economic situation of each.

The Competitiveness and Convergence Budget (BICC) will help the euro countries to implement structural reforms and investments that follow the recommendations of the European Semester. The capitals will have to contribute 25% of the funds required by each project, but this percentage may be reduced by half in the case of "severe economic circumstances".

It is estimated that this new budget instrument will have a size of about 17,000 million euros for the entire period between 2021 and 2027, so the part dedicated to responding to crisis situations will not exceed 3,400 million euros. However, these are indicative calculations because the exact figure must be negotiated by the Twenty-Eight in the coming months.

Both the mattress for delicate moments and the modulation in the national co-financing rate were two elements defended by Spain to provide this tool with a certain stabilizing character, waiting for the debate on European unemployment insurance to evolve with a true countercyclical component. .

The agreement reached on Thursday still leaves the possibility that the partners of the single currency can contribute additional funds to this amount, an aspect that has been left for another time waiting to hear the opinion on the legal services of the Council of the EU.

"Only two years ago, the fiscal capacity for the euro was only a purely academic issue. Last night, after 11 hours of negotiations, we made it a reality in the form of a budget instrument for the eurozone," said the president of the Eurogroup, Mário Centeno, at a press conference.

For his part, the Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, has insisted that the budget instrument of the eurozone agreed on Thursday "is not the last step" in the "long journey" towards a budget of the eurozone. "I consider it an important first step and not just a symbolic one," he said, and then emphasize that the euro zone "can and should go further."

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