Quarrels at the highest political level over the solidarity that EU Member States need to show towards each other to face a crisis have resurfaced since the third European videoconference summit on the European response to the current coronavirus pandemic (see EUROPE 12455/1).
The turmoil is particularly visible within the centre-right political family, which brings together under one roof political leaders who are in favour of a leap forward towards budgetary union, notably through the joint issue of European bonds, and others who refuse to pool financial risks.
In the first category are the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister of Belgium, Sophie Wilmes, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel, and the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, all signatories of the letter from the nine Member States advocating the issuance of common debt instruments (see EUROPE 12454/1).
Faced with these leaders, with whom he regularly coordinates in the run-up to European summits, the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, categorically refuses to consider any possibility of ‘coronabonds’. This dissonance echoes that observed when the Dutch liberal supports the position of the ‘frugal’ countries, which are calling for a budget for the EU 2021-2024 limited to 1% of GNI.
Aware of these fractures, the president of the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament, Dacian Cioloș, wants the leaders of his political family to talk to each other ahead of the next European summit, which will meet after the Eurogroup on Tuesday 7 April. The Twenty-Seven will be invited to comment on the proposals to be presented to them by the Eurogroup on options for strengthening the European response to the pandemic.
In another example of friction between liberals, the seven Ciudadanos MEPs wrote to Mr Rutte on Saturday 28 March to express their outrage at the words of Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra. He had recommended that the Commission investigate why the countries most affected by the pandemic, currently Italy and Spain, have small budgetary margins to prevent the collapse of their economies while the euro area has gone through a seven-year period of growth.
“We find his statements inconsistent with the spirit and the values that shaped the founding of the European Union, most notably, the values of solidarity and fraternity between the citizens and peoples of Europe. This virus knows no borders and in order to tackle it, cooperation and solidarity alone must be our guiding principles”, write the seven elected officials of Ciudadanos. They call on Mr Rutte to dissociate himself from the “absolutely unacceptable” remarks by Mr Hoekstra, who comes from the Christian Democratic family.
The extent of the disastrous socio-economic consequences of the pandemic is still difficult to predict, but it will certainly affect every EU Member State, according to MEPs.
On Friday, Mr Cioloș also reminded Mr Rutte that the health of his country’s economy “depends on what happens within the single market”.
Asked on Monday 30 March by EUROPE, Liberal MEP Sophie in't Veld, who does not belong to the same party as Mr Rutte, admitted that the Dutch authorities had given a speech that was “completely inappropriate” and which, moreover, had been strongly criticised in the Netherlands.
It is time, she said, to get out of “trench warfare” and get back to unity, because “there are plenty of solutions if we all agree we need a compromise”. She herself advocates “a form of risk-sharing” between Member States. And Ms in't Veld believes that beyond the debate on ‘coronabonds’, the stability of the euro area will depend on the capacity of its members to convince of its political stability.
But there is still a long way to go to rebuild trust. Over the weekend, former Commission President Jacques Delors spoke out to warn European leaders. “The climate that seems to prevail between the heads of state or government and the lack of European solidarity are putting the European Union in mortal danger”, he warned in a statement transmitted to AFP.
On Tuesday 7 April, the Eurogroup will try to define several options to further strengthen the European economic and budgetary response to the pandemic, following the freezing of the Stability and Growth Pact, the relaxation of the State Aid framework and the provision of structural and investment funds.
These options include: – the provision of credit lines by the euro area’s permanent rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM); – the development of a temporary unemployment reinsurance scheme (see EUROPE 12452/2); – an increased mobilisation of the European Investment Bank (EIB) to provide bank guarantees or even provide liquidity to stimulate investment; – a higher contribution from the EU budget for 2020 (see EUROPE 12456/1, 12456/2) and for the 2021-2027 period (see EUROPE 12457/2).
“Everyone has their own vision for getting out of the crisis and back on the road to a healthy economy. We need to find a consensus [...] and work on a medium-term strategy to erase the effects of the crisis as much as possible”, said Eric Mamer, chief spokesman of the European Commission, for whom it is healthy, in democracies, to have debates. In his view, Europe has “always come out on top of crises” and it must be ensured that this is the case once again, in accordance with democratic principles.
See the letter from Ciudadanos: https://bit.ly/39ueRum (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)