German Finance Minister, Olaf Scholz

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February 15, 2021

In today's Eurogroup meeting "we take stock of the situation of Covid, we evaluate the impact it is having on the eurozone economy, and we review the policies we have to respond".

Thus the president of the Eurogroup, Paschal Donohoe, before the start of the works.

On the agenda there is also the "difficult" situation of companies precisely because of the impact of the pandemic.

The meeting of the 19 ministers opened with a brief introduction by the new members, the Italian Daniele Franco and his colleague from Estonia.

"I have just talked to Daniele Franco, to congratulate him on his appointment as Minister of Finance. I will welcome him this afternoon in the Eurogroup and we will work together on the challenges we face," said Donohoe, in the morning, via social network.

Franco provided indications on the 'agenda'.

This is a consolidated practice: the new 'entrants' in the Eurogroup summarize their government's program on fiscal and economic policy issues.

Meanwhile, on the sidelines of the Eurogroup, the statement by the German Finance Minister, Olaf Scholz, stands out.

"Mario Draghi represents very intelligent policies and is a true European," he said, answering a question about the new government in Italy.

"Italy has again chosen a pro-European government, this is an excellent sign", he added, underlining that "Italy is one of the countries that benefit most from European solidarity and from the decisions taken in Europe" to face the crisis. pandemic "and Mario Draghi is certainly a very pro-European head of government".

The Eurogroup will discuss the macroeconomic situation today, first of all listening to Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization for health emergencies, who will take stock of the epidemiological situation.

"The growing spread of virus mutations is a cause of great concern for the EU" and, although Europe and Germany are "on the right path" to exit the crisis, "we must not loosen the restrictive measures too soon" "Scholz continued. With the spread of the variants" many EU countries will also see the blockades extended or tightened and Germany has also expanded its precautions again in recent weeks. "The German minister noted, however, that" the good news "for Berlin "is that we have managed to significantly reduce the number of cases in recent weeks".

The European Commission is represented today by Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni and Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis.