EC calls for 'Marshall Plan' for Europe, Spain wants 'wartime economy'

EC President Ursula von der Leyen. Photo: Reuters

According to DW, EC President Ursula von der Leyen has called on EU countries to invest billions of euros in the bloc's budget to prevent catastrophic economic consequences from the current crisis caused by the new strain of Corona virus (Covid-19).

“We now need a Marshall Plan for Europe,” she wrote in an article in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, referring to the recovery plan introduced by the United States between 1948 and 1952 to help Western European economies after World War II.

The article asserts that the EU budget, agreed by all member states, is a tool to level out inequalities in the spirit of solidarity and now needs to be adjusted to respond to the crisis.

“The many billions of euros that now need to be invested to divert a more terrible tragedy will help bring generations together,” she wrote, calling the ongoing crisis an opportunity to renew a sense of community among Europe’s nations.

Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez made a similar call for a “Marshall Plan” in an article published in another German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, urging Europe to institute immediate economic measures as if it were in a war.

“Europe needs to establish a wartime economy and adopt measures to protect, rebuild and restore the European economy,” Sanchez wrote, asserting that this needs to be done as soon as possible to offset the debts that many countries have accumulated during the coronavirus pandemic.

“If the virus does not respect borders, neither should financial mechanisms,” he wrote, adding that decisive, ambitious action could turn the crisis into “an opportunity to rebuild a much stronger EU.”

The EU is currently busy debating how to resolve the debt burden between member states. Finance ministers of the countries using the euro are expected to discuss the bloc's financial problems in the context of the Covid-19 crisis on April 7.