At the very beginning, in February and March 2020, when the coronavirus arrived in Europe and spread rapidly, it threatened to become a rupture fungus in the EU.

The member states closed their borders without consulting their neighbors, and Germany and other countries imposed export bans on medical equipment.

The federal government made sure that no protective masks left the country.

She didn't care what it was like in Italy, for example, from where the images of the transport of bodies in army trucks went around the world.

In any case, protecting the internal market was not a special Berlin interest.

Italian mayors then appealed to German solidarity - and called for the introduction of Eurobonds.

Werner Mussler

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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Even then, it was not clear why joint euro area bonds should be useful or necessary for fighting pandemics.

And since eurobonds have been considered a no-go in Germany since the euro crisis in 2010, the Chancellor rejected them in April 2020.

But it only took until mid-May before Angela Merkel, together with French President Emmanuel Macron, proposed European debts for the "reconstruction" of Europe after the pandemic.

The EU should for the first time borrow itself to finance a reconstruction fund and pass the funds on to the member states.

The reason is the same, the implementation is different

Merkel's and Macron's proposal formed the basis for the € 750 billion development program that the heads of state and government decided in July 2020. Once again, the member states stretched the European treaties: just as they generously interpreted the “bail-out ban” of the treaty on the functioning of the EU in 2010 with the introduction of a joint “rescue package” for the euro area, they now settled on the ban on debt of the contract.

Both times it was about European debts, but there was one crucial difference: The "rescue package" of 2010, the current ESM crisis fund, was based on an intergovernmental agreement between its financiers, the euro countries. If the ESM grants loans to countries in distress, this requires the consent of the other countries. For the Corona Fund, on the other hand, the EU Commission itself takes out loans and passes them on to EU countries partly as loans and partly as grants. The approval of the Council of Ministers is also required for this, but the hurdles are significantly lower.

Since the common debts to fight corona are still considered a great success, the development fund has many fathers and mothers.

If you believe the SPD politicians in Brussels, then Finance Minister Olaf Scholz launched the fund together with his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire.

If you believe Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the plan was her idea and that of clever Commission officials.

The latter is at least true insofar as von der Leyen increased the package proposed by Merkel and Macron from 500 billion euros to 750 billion euros.

And yet: Without the Franco-German proposal - more precisely: without Merkel's sudden approval of European debts - it would have come to nothing.