On Tuesday 25 August, the European Commission presented a proposal for a decision requesting that the SURE instrument supported national short-time working schemes in Portugal to the tune of €5.9 billion.
By including Portugal in the 15 proposals announced the day before (see EUROPE 12544/1), the European Commission hopes to mobilise EUR 87.3 billion to support 16 Member States from a total of EUR 100 billion under the SURE instrument. The Hungarian application is still under review by the Commission services. An answer should be made known shortly.
For the time being, all the amounts requested by the Member States have been approved by the European Commission, with the exception of Italy, Spain and Poland (the three largest beneficiaries of the instrument), for whom the requested amounts were revised downwards.
The regulation establishing the SURE instrument stipulates that the share of loans granted to the three Member States receiving the most significant financial support must not exceed 60% of the total amount of the instrument (Article 9 of the Regulation).
At present, €12.7 billion remains available until 31 December 2022. Germany and France do not intend to use the SURE instrument.
The EU Council will begin its analytical work at a technical level on Thursday 27 August. They have then said that an agreement should be reached by the end of September. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)