ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th July, 2020) The weekend negotiations at the EU summit in Brussels on an economic recovery plan are going more difficult than expected, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Saturday, adding that the situation was reaching a deadlock.
The first in-person summit since the onset of the pandemic on Friday and Saturday aimed to see opposing economic realities of EU nations attempt to divvy up a 1.07 trillion euro ($1.2 trillion) budget for the coming seven years. To counter the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, the European Commission in late May suggested setting up a 750 billion Euros ($854 billion) recovery fund, which would include 500 billion euros in grants and 250 billion euros in loans for EU nations.
"There are many parties to the discussion, and this makes the process very difficult. There are many questions at stake for which we are looking common positions. These tools should be proportionate to what we are experiencing. No one should approve ineffective means, a firm and reliable collective response is needed," Conte said in a video after the summit posted on Facebook.
According to the Italian prime minister, the negotiations turned out to be "more difficult than expected," and the parties found themselves at an impasse.
"We are unable to resolve many issues," Conte noted, stressing that the Italian delegation had a challenging dialogue with the so-called Frugal Four group, comprised of the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Austria.
These four EU countries oppose debt mutualization and believe that money should be issued in the form of loans rather than grants.
