• European Council. Divergences on funds. Conte wants an adequate answer. Merkel: "Difficult agreement"

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July 18, 2020 The first day of work of the European Council dedicated to the 'Recovery fund' ends as expected: each country maintains the positions with which it presented itself in Brussels. We will talk about it today from 11 am.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz maintains his position as a "frugal" country and reiterates his refusal of the proposal for a Recovery fund which provides state subsidies for 500 billion. Kurz tweeted: "Our main claim is that there cannot be long-term debt sharing. We certainly want to show solidarity, but we also have the interests of Austrian taxpayers in mind." Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte instead insists on the request for unanimous approval, in the Council, of the national reform plans for the beneficiary countries of the Recovery plan. 

The heads of government of Italy and Spain have spent a long time defending the proposal of the European Commission. "It is not a question of vetoing, it is a matter of finding an agreement. We are willing to enter into the logic of revising some details. We are absolutely not available to accept a compromise solution that not only alters the balance between the European institutions - this is a red line for us - but also the ambition regarding the amount of the Recovery fund's intervention and the balance and internal balance between grants and loans ". The Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte says so. 

To meet the demands of the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, has presented a proposal according to which the decisions on the funding of the Recovery would be interrupted if there was no consensus between the governments and the question would return to the table of the Council. Michel would also be discussing with the leaders a review of the allocation of Recovery funds. According to what emerges from Michel's new proposal that provides that the request to activate an 'emergency brake' to block Recovery funding to a Member State could be activated by a number of countries, it would not have been accepted by Holland. The Hague would be insisting that the possibility of blocking funds may be requested even by just one country and then return to discussion in the Council which would have the task of deciding.

Michel's proposal was short-lived, the Netherlands, according to what emerges, would not have accepted the draft and would have insisted that even a single Member State may request a stop to funding. "Despite Charles Michel's generous commitment, we believe that the new proposal cannot be spent." So Giuseppe Conte replied to those who asked him if the Italian government is satisfied with the new proposal and to those who asked him if he believes that the Dutch 'wall' can be overcome, the Prime Minister replied: "The unanimous approval of plans of national reforms? It doesn't exist "and added:" Nothing is unshakable, let's see tomorrow ".