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.

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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.