France implicated the Netherlands on Wednesday in the failure of a meeting of EU member states and deemed "unthinkable" that an agreement cannot be reached on Thursday for a common and "ambitious" economic response to the coronavirus crisis.
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The Elysee Palace said it expected a change in position from the Netherlands, the "only country" to have opposed the activation of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) during a marathon meeting of member states of the EU in Brussels which ended Wednesday at dawn with a failure.
An "incomprehensible" block
This blockage is "counterproductive, incomprehensible and cannot last", underlined the presidency. Because "the urgency of the situation requires the mobilization of the MES", she added. "Our collective responsibility now is to reach an agreement within 24 hours. A failure is unthinkable," said for his part the Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire after the Council of Ministers. "We will put (...) all of our weight in this battle to reach an agreement," he added.
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A new Eurogroup meeting on Thursday
Mario Centeno, the president of the Eurogroup, the body that brings together the finance ministers of the euro zone, convened a new Thursday from 5 p.m. Ministers propose that the ESM, created in 2012 during the debt crisis in the euro zone and financed by the member states, can lend money to a state in difficulty up to 2% of its GDP, or up to 240 billion euros for the entire eurozone.
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The option is rejected by Italy, the European country most affected by the epidemic (more than 17,127 dead), and by Spain, as long as these loans are accompanied by conditions such as requests for reform, which demands The Hague. In solidarity, Germany is itself ready to relax the conditions requested, but the Netherlands remains unyielding for the time being. At the start of the coronavirus crisis, the Dutch Minister of Finance had already provoked anger from Portugal and Spain, by requesting an investigation by the European Commission into the state of their finances.
For the Elysee Palace, the 27 must take into account "public perception of the EU" and the fact that "the level of confidence in Europe is falling apart, especially in Italy".