EU Leaders Seal the Deal on $2.1 Trillion Coronavirus Recovery Fund

BRUSSELS, KOMPAS.com — Exhausted European Union leaders have come to an agreement to the bloc’s unprecedented €1.8 trillion ($2.1 trillion) budget and coronavirus recovery fund on Tuesday.

The agreement marks the longest EU summit ever after four days and nights of negotiations and talks.

The 27 EU leaders demonstrated their commitment to providing European aid for member states that have been hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Covid-19 virus has claimed the lives of 135,000 in the EU.

Read also: Deadlocked EU Leaders Inch Closer to an Agreement for Coronavirus Recovery Fund

The venue for the EU summit was complete hygienic gel everywhere while European Leaders donned masks.

This has become a reminder of the deadly health and economic risks the Covid-19 virus poses.

“Extraordinary events, and this is the pandemic that has reached us all, also require extraordinary new methods,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

To confront the biggest recession in its history, the EU will establish a 750 billion-euro coronavirus fund, partly based on common borrowing, to be sent as loans and grants to the hardest-hit countries.

That is in addition to the agreement on the seven-year, 1 trillion-euro EU budget that leaders had been haggling over for months even before the pandemic.