Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez made the case for ambitious EU fiscal intervention, including shared debt, on Sunday.
However there was no indication of a change of heart in Germany on the question of “coronabonds.”
“It is time to act with solidarity: creating a new debt mutualisation mechanism,” Sanchez wrote in an op-ed for several newspapers, including Italy’s La Repubblica and Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
According to him, this is a time for breaking old national dogma.
EU member states are at odds over how much fiscal firepower to roll out to cushion the economic blow of the coronavirus pandemic.
Italy, backed by Spain and France, among others, argue that jointly issued bonds are the only way to borrow the necessary hundreds of billions of euros at a low cost.
Germany, along with Austria and the Netherlands, fears taking on liability for other countries’ debt.
According to Sanchez, measures already agreed to shore up the bloc’s economy are a good start, however, do not go far enough.
Report says a package of three shorter-term measures looks set to be signed off on Tuesday, however, the thornier question of a collective debt instrument, so-called coronabonds, is more divisive.
According to her chief of staff Helge Braun, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s position is unchanged.
“The government is sceptical towards anything that endangers the stability of the Eurozone economic and currency area,” the head of the Federal Chancellery told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
dpa/NAN.
