Recovery plan: four days of negotiations and the hope of a 27-party agreement

Correspondent in Brussels

Two big questions agitated, Monday, the Brussels bubble and European diplomacy, on the fourth day of the summit devoted to the recovery plan to 750 billion euros. One: are the Twenty-Seven going - finally! - manage to find a compromise? Two: is this meeting the longest in EU history? This was not yet the case on Monday afternoon, but we were still fast approaching the record of the Nice summit in December 2000, modifying the EU treaties and enlarging the Union.

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There were fifteen Member States at the time. They are now twenty-seven. And the least we can say is that it's hard to get everyone to agree. Some, in the perspective of the conference on the future on Europe, would also welcome the fact that we are finally looking at this rule of unanimity which too often grips the EU. But, at this stage, the Twenty-Seven and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, have no choice but to deal with these endless discussions to get everyone on board, starting with the club of so-called "frugal countries". "- Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Denmark but also Finland now - who have been resisting since Friday and, above all, its leader, Mark Rutte who has the art and the way of making the pleasure last to nibble on concessions. Discussions therefore continued on Monday in Brussels, after a dinner held at Vingt-Sept the day before, a long night of bilateral meetings and then, in the early morning, a very brief plenary meeting - seven minutes flat.

If you want to break up, there is no problem. I am preparing my press conference with Angela Merkel and we will explain that the “frugal” have blocked the agreement

And it took a little grip for the discussions to continue and not get completely bogged down. Sunday evening, during the dinner of the Twenty-Seven, Charles Michel then Emmanuel Macron banged his fist on the table. "If there is no possible agreement, then I end this meeting," warned the President of the European Council. "I have no problem. If you want to break up, there is no problem. I am preparing my press conference with Angela Merkel and we will explain that the “frugal” have blocked the agreement, ” added the president. Sitting in his chair, in a barely audible voice, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven immediately reacted: “No, no. We continue." The "frugal" do not want to bear the responsibility for a failure of negotiations. Emmanuel Macron also raised the tone on the way in which the club of "thrifty" - and particularly Mark Rutte - understood questions of the rule of law. “It's still interesting that you talk about the rule of law whenever there is a budget problem. When your numbers are good, you don't talk about it, ” he said, a bit ironic.

Monday evening, there was hope. " An agreement is likely ", underlined a diplomat, while calling it "historic" . The afternoon was still rough, the "frugal" continued to want to reduce the volume of subsidies while Charles Michel had mentioned, Monday morning, a non-negotiable envelope of 390 billion euros. An amount confirmed in the new proposal of the President of the European Council, unveiled in the early evening. In this new attempt at compromise, 312 billion should go directly to countries to help them finance their national stimulus packages. That is two billion more than proposed by the Commission. Good news for the beneficiary countries and for France which, according to Paris, would see its "return on the recovery" increase by 5 billion, to 40 billion euros therefore.

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In the event of agreement on Michel's proposal, the recovery plan would remain at 750 billion euros, with 360 billion in loans and 390 billion in subsidies, instead of the 500 billion of the Franco-German proposal. This was possible at the cost of a reduction in the credits envisaged in the Commission's programs: research, health, just transition mechanism intended to help Member States meet the objective of carbon neutrality by 2050. On the latter point, Poland is also doing well since the Member States would not have to subscribe to the objective at national level but only at European level.

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What about the frugal? Mark Rutte seemed to have watered his wine on Monday. "He was much more constructive," said one diplomat. We would be at least. Certainly, the thrifty countries finally accepted the principles of common borrowing and subsidies to which they were opposed. And they will have, as net contributors to the EU budget, to help pay the bill for the 390 billion euros in subsidies. Certainly, many believe that this agreement would constitute as many taboos lifted and a first step towards more integration.

But, if there is agreement on Charles Michel's proposal, the "frugal" would also see their rebates significantly increase to 53 billion over 7 years, or 7 billion more even as the United Kingdom left the bloc. For the Netherlands, the rebate would increase to 1.9 billion euros per year against 1.57 billion previously. For Austria, it would be doubled. These are costly concessions that amount to setting these rebates in stone. Because, it will be very difficult to question or renegotiate them when the time comes.