Brussels, April 24, 2020
The EU’s coronavirus recession response Team on Friday accused prominent EU lawmakers of foot-dragging on virus recovery plan, even as national leaders said progress had been made.
The EU parliamentarian, Udo Bullmann, said that the future was built with courage, adding that unfortunately EU leaders were lacking in this at this crucial moment.
Bullmann is a centre-left politician of Germany’s Social Democrats.
The Head of the Greens parliamentary group in the EU legislature, Philippe Lamberts, also accused national governments of deferring the problem to a later date and of acting irresponsibly.
EU Heads agreed in principle to set up a recovery fund closely linked to the bloc’s next long-term budget and tasked the European Commission with generating a proposal.
“Virtually all details were left undecided and stubborn differences between member state positions make a rapid solution unlikely,’’ he said.
Polish Government spokesperson, Piotr Muller, commended the declaration, acknowledging that they had to wait for the details on how the fund would be supplied and the size.
“What is positive is a change in attitudes.
“There are concerns that the EU will not undertake such actions,’’ he said.
The EU leaders did sign off a 540-billion-euro ($584 billion) package of short-term aid that had been previously negotiated by Finance Ministers.
It should be operational by June.