Eurogroup, Gentiloni: "European countries take another step forward"

2020-04-07T10:04:03.858Z

"In the face of the most serious crisis after the war, it is time for European countries to take another step forward in their common response. Responsibility and ambition". So on Twitter the EU Commissioner for Economics Paolo Gentiloni before the start of the Eurogroup videoconference meeting. Today's Eurogroup could reach an agreement on a package of different measures to respond to the economic impact of the Coronavirus crisis, which includes the use of credit lines of the European Stability Mechanism (MES). Discussions between the Sherpas of Finance ministers at the Euro Working Group allowed substantial progress to be made, although a number of details still remain to be agreed on the MES and other instruments. In the event of an agreement, the President of the Eurogroup, Mario Centeno, will send a report to the European Council to illustrate the various proposals on the table and those that can be activated immediately. On Mes, the positions of the Member States are converging towards the use of credit lines on enhanced terms (ECCL), but without resorting to Greece-style conditionality. In essence, resources should only be used to respond to the health and economic emergency. Countries that use ECCLs should sign a Memorandum of Understanding. The conditions would be limited to compliance with the Commission's normal macro-economic and fiscal recommendations, without requests for additional budgetary adjustments. The package on which consensus is emerging within the Eurogroup should exceed the figure of over 500 billion euros. In addition to the credit lines at strengthened terms of the Mes up to 2% of GDP (240 billion), it also includes the plan of the European Investment Bank to mobilize 200 billion of liquidity for businesses and the 100 billion SURE instrument proposed by the Commission to help Member States finance mechanisms like layoffs, but there is no consensus on the Coronabonds and France's proposal to create a recovery fund that issues a common debt. However, the French proposal could be mentioned in Centeno's report as a possible idea to be developed in the longer term.