EU summit extends into Sunday as leaders split over key recovery plan
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A special summit grouping heads of state and government of the European Union (EU) member states on Saturday failed to reach consensus on its multiannual budget and an ambitious recovery plan designed to lift the bloc out of the crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.
The leaders will reconvene on Sunday noon, a spokesman for the European Council President Charles Michel said on Twitter late Saturday night. The summit was supposed to run from Friday to Saturday.
The summit, the first face-to-face one since the outbreak of the pandemic, came at a critical moment as the bloc is seeking a consensus on the European Commission-proposed 750-billion-euro recovery plan.
The next seven-year EU budget worth more than one trillion euros is another focus of the summit.
In the debt-financed 750-billion-euro recovery plan, 500 billion euros will be paid as non-repayable grants to crisis-hit countries and 250 billion as loans. But the EU member states differed greatly in discussions on Friday.
The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Austria, nicknamed the Frugal Four, opposed the non-repayable grants, and called for linking aid to reform plans, while Spain and Italy, the hardest-hit countries by the pandemic, called for reaching the consensus as soon as possible.
As the host of the summit, Michel proposed a compromise on Saturday, cutting the portion of the grants in the recovery fund to 450 billion euros from 500 billion and an “emergency brake” on disbursement would be added.
Michel held eight-hour one-on-one discussions and then explored further solutions before asking all 27 leaders to dinner together.
There is no doubt that vested interests both within and outside the E.U. are trying to force certain European nations to adopt the so-called ‘Rule of Law’ formulated by ‘Pink Poodles’ (non-elected poofie-woofies and licky-lickies) in Brussels.
These mental retards and their ‘handlers’ (the ‘wannabe dictators’ of Europe – Macron, Merkel and Michel) refuse to accept that not all European nations – or their citizens – want to follow neo-liberal / Marxist / Communist principles and have taken it upon themselves to ‘force’ such disgusting things [a bit like Castor oil] down the throats of others.
If these Socialist-minded morons don’t cease their crazy plan, it is highly likely that the entire ‘European project’ will shortly disintegrate into millions of tiny fragments.