EU negotiations on Corona bailout stall

Discussions on proposals to combat the economic crisis have been interrupted. There is no sign of a rapid breakthrough.

Brussels / Berlin (dpa) - There was no rapid breakthrough at night in the EU negotiations on a multi-billion dollar corona crisis package for states, companies and employees.

The press conference, originally scheduled for the evening, was postponed to 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday. Negotiations said that work on a compromise would continue, but this would take time.

The background was the ongoing dispute over the common European borrowing via so-called corona bonds or recovery bonds. France, Italy, Spain and others said the meeting insisted on considering such common European debt at least for post-pandemic recovery programs. Germany, the Netherlands and others would have further refused, it was said.

Before the meeting of the Eurogroup and the other EU finance ministers, Federal Finance Minister Scholz had promoted three "instruments of solidarity" that appeared to be largely consensual: precautionary credit lines from the ESM euro rescue fund; a guarantee fund for corporate loans from the European Investment Bank and the short-time worker program "Sure" proposed by the EU Commission. According to Mario Centeno, head of the Eurogroups, they would together create a "safety net" worth half a trillion euros.