On Tuesday 30 March, the European Commission announced an additional €3.7 billion in financial assistance to six EU Member States, mainly Greece, under the SURE instrument, which supports national short-time working schemes in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The budgetary extension concerns Belgium (€394 million out of a total of €8.2 billion), Cyprus (€125 million out of €604 million), Greece (€2.5 billion out of €5.2 billion), Latvia (€113 million out of €305 million), Lithuania (€355 million out of €957 million) and Malta (€177 million out of €421 million).
In addition, the European Commission announced the payment of €13 billion (see EUROPE 12685/8) under the sixth tranche of aid from the fund. The aid will go to the Czech Republic (€1 billion), Belgium (€2.2 billion), Spain (€4.06 billion), Ireland (€2.47 billion), Italy (€1.87 billion) and Poland (€1.4 billion).
This is the first time Ireland has received aid from the instrument, the Commission says. To date, 17 Member States have received a total of €75.5 billion under the SURE instrument in the form of back-to-back loans.
The total aid under the instrument is up to €94.3 billion, subject to the EU Council’s agreement, distributed among 19 Member States.
For an overview of the amounts disbursed: https://bit.ly/3sCOkFp (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)