EU prioritizing free goods flow, vaccine search, Italy issues ultimatum
5852 Mins Read
The European Union is prioritizing maintaining open borders for goods to flow and the hunt for a vaccine against the coronavirus, European Council president Charles Michel said in a video conference of EU leaders.
“Our priority is to reduce the non-essential travel of people but at the same time to guarantee the flow of goods, which is very important in order to avoid shortages and to protect as much as possible the single market,” Charles Michel, who chairs EU summits, told the video news conference.
“We will continue also at the international level … to be part of a common commitment to develop and produce the vaccines we need as soon as possible,” he continued.
But EU heads of state and government disagreed during the videoconference on Thursday by refusing to back the Italian idea of “corona bonds” — a common debt instrument to help finance the response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed thousands of lives across Europe in recent weeks and put the Continent on virtual lockdown.
The dispute took EU leaders to the edge of a political debacle, with a complete breakdown averted only through an agreement brokered by European Council President Charles Michel for leaders return to the debate in two weeks, when they will consider formal proposals from eurozone finance ministers.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, furious about adamant opposition to the corona bonds concept by the Netherlands and Germany, upended the videoconference by declaring that he would not support the leaders’ concluding statement.
“We need to react with innovative financial tools,” Conte told his counterparts, according to an Italian official. Conte issued an ultimatum giving officials in Brussels 10 days to come back with “an adequate solution.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez weighed in to support Italy, aligning the two countries that have suffered the most coronavirus deaths.
