The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Thursday 2 April in Brussels that she wanted to ensure that the EU’s next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2021-2027 is a new “Marshall Plan”, named after the US programme of loans to individual European states to help rebuild cities bombed during the Second World War.
The European Commission is preparing a new proposal on the MFF to take into account the response to the COVID-19 crisis and to put in place a plan to revive the European economy (see EUROPE 12457/2).
Presenting the new measures to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus pandemic (see other news), President von der Leyen told the press that to date the European Union (the European institutions and the Member States) has mobilised €2.770 trillion, an unprecedented response to a crisis.
“But we need to start preparing the long-term recovery”, she said. “And there, the European budget, the so-called ‘MFF', is our strongest, it is our most important instrument”, she stressed. It is an “outstanding tool of investment and convergence”, she said.
Solidarity and investment. Responding to a question from the press, Ms von der Leyen stressed that the MFF be shaped “in such a way that it is a crucial part of our recovery plan”. She believes that the European budget “is the best expression of solidarity and responsibility of the Member States”.
The priorities, despite the COVID-19 crisis, must be “digitalisation, decarbonisation and resilience” of the EU.
“Many are calling right now for something which is called a Marshall Plan. Well, I think the European budget should be the Marshall Plan we are laying out together as a EU for the European people”, she concluded. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)