European leaders call for ‘Marshall plan’ for post-virus Europe

As European leaders have reached a new deadlock over the bloc’s response to the Coronavirus’ impact on the Union’s economies, several are endorsing the idea of a ‘Marshall plan’ for Europe once the pandemic is contained.

During their previous virtual EU summit, EU27 leaders tasked the Eurogroup to come up with proposals for the bloc’s “exit strategy” from the Covid-19 economic havoc, as Germany and the Netherlands crusade against issuing a common debt with other European nations.

On Saturday, the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Europe needs a “new mechanism for debt mutualisation,” and a common ‘Marshall plan’ to recover from the virus’ economic turmoil. Sánchez echoed Ursula von der Leyen’s calls, who on April 2, pointed at the bloc’s long-term budget, namely the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2021 – 2027, as a strong tool for the bloc’s recovery.

“Some people are talking about a Marshall Plan. The European budget should be the Marshall Plan we lay out together,” von der Leyen said when presenting a financial package aimed at supporting the countries most-hit by the pandemic.

In an interview given to Belgian television channel LN24 in March, EU Council President Charles Michel had also floated the idea of EU leaders shaping a “Marshall Plan-like stimulus strategy”. Michel described the endeavour as “an intra-European plan which must mobilize EU capital in the framework of the European budget; which must mobilize national funds and which should also mobilize the private sector.”

The Marshall plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a US initiative that provided over $12 bn of aid to European nations from 1948 until 1951, to help the continent recover from the WWII havoc.