#EUCO - ‘We did it! Europe is strong, Europe is united’

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel

Following a marathon summit of four days and nights, between Europe’s 27 heads of government,  European Council President Charles Michel announced that a deal had been reached: ‘We did it!’

The package is made up of a multi-annual budget (MFF) of €1,074 billion and an additional €750bn to help Europe relaunch its economy following the COVID-19 crisis.

Some of the harder discussions were over national rebates of the so-called ‘frugal’ states, oversight of budgetary plans of how each state spends recovery funds, the balance between grants and loans and the link between the rule of law and spending.  

#EUCO - ‘Today we’ve taken an historic step’ von der Leyen

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed what she described as "an historic step". She said that people often accuse Europe of doing too little, too late, but that Europe had been able to draw up a recovery package in a little over two months, with its Next Generation EU recovery plan.

She lamented that in order to reach a compromise agreement, far-reaching adjustments had been needed, including the removal of the solvency instrument and cuts to what was proposed for health, migration, external action and InvestEU. Nevertheless, she noted that 50% of the overall package will support modernization of Europe's economy.

Von der Leyen highlighted two main achievements, the creation of new own resources tightly linked to repayment and that there had been no need for an intergovernmental agreement, states have decided to trust the European Commission to a great extent. The issue of trust has been partly addressed in the governance arrangements that give some oversight to the Council.

One of the changes that is particularly welcomed is the close link between recovery plans and country-specific recommendations (CSRs). These are a series of recommendations on what each country needs to do to meet priorities identified at an EU level. Up until now, the CSRs have gone through much scrutiny by finance ministers and EU leaders, but have not proved effective in changing national policies, it is hoped that this moment is also a turning point for deeper structural problems in EU member states.

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