BERLIN: German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Sunday that the European Union’s recovery package financed by joint borrowing was a long-term measure rather than a short-term coronavirus crisis fix, contradicting Chancellor Angela Merkel. “These steps forward will inevitably lead to a debate about joint resources for the EU, something that’s a condition for an improved European Union that works better,” he added. For the first time, leaders gave their green light to joint debt — an idea Germany had long rejected until the Covid-19 pandemic hobbled many European economies that had already spent a decade struggling to recover from the last financial crisis. Scholz added that the way voting works at EU level should be reformed to make reaching decisions easier. “The EU must be able to act collectively,” he said.

Source: Manila Times August 23, 2020 16:07 UTC