Member States' Ambassadors to the European Union have welcomed the new instrument to support national short-time working schemes (SURE) proposed by the European Commission in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic at the meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives II (Coreper II) on Friday 3 April.
However, Italy and Spain pointed out that the funding of EUR 100 billion would not be high enough. Some Member States' delegations insisted that the instrument should be intended for all Member States and not only those belonging to the euro area.
However, unlike the CRII+' initiative allowing flexibility to the structural and investment funds (see other news), the SURE legislative proposal (see EUROPE 12460/1) should not be fast-tracked in the EU Council, we are told. And for good reason: while the new provisions in CRII+ make use of the budgetary margins of manoeuvre of the European budget "which are already there", SURE is a new instrument which requires new money, explains a diplomatic source.
The instrument will be discussed at the Eurogroup meeting by videoconference on Tuesday 7 April. The text will be technically ready, a diplomatic source tells us, but its immediate future would be linked to the other proposals on the table, such as recourse to the European Stability Mechanism (which requires agreement, in particular on the thorny issue of conditionalities), the measures announced by the European Investment Bank (see EUROPE 12461/3) or France's proposal for a European Investment Recovery Fund after the crisis.
According to another diplomatic source, the text requires, on the one hand, several clarifications, which cannot be settled "overnight", in that it requires analysis from the national parliaments, the majority of which are operating at reduced speed because of the pandemic. On the other hand, questions remain open as to the duration of its operation and its scope, with some Member States wanting the broadest possible scope.
Although the text requires in theory only a qualified majority among the Member States, the fact that all 27 Member States must agree to finance the guarantee to the tune of EUR 25 billion means that unanimity is effectively required, as one source explains. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens and Mathieu Bion)