On Tuesday 2 February, the European Commission announced the payment of a new tranche of €14 billion to nine Member States under the SURE instrument, to support national short-time working schemes during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Belgium received €2 billion (out of a total of €7.8 billion), Cyprus €229 million (out of €479 million), Hungary €304 million (out of €504 million), Latvia €72 million (out of €192 million), Poland €4.28 billion (out of €11.2 billion), Slovenia €913 million (out of €1.1 billion), Spain €1.03 billion (out of €21.3 billion), Greece €728 million (out of €2.7 billion) and Italy €4.45 billion (out of €27.4 billion). These sums are in addition to those already paid previously (see EUROPE 12613/31).
A total of €53.5 billion has already been paid out to 15 Member States.
Faced with the second wave of the coronavirus and the related job destruction, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) launched an appeal on 1 February to extend the instrument (see EUROPE 12648/13), of which the €100 billion has almost all been requested.
€90.3 billion has in fact already been earmarked to date to help 18 Member States (see EUROPE 12602/6). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)