French president calls EU deal on recovery fund “historic”

Paris, France | XINHUA | French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday hailed as “historic” a European Union (EU) deal on a post-pandemic recovery fund that would help build a “green and prosperous Europe” and further improve European solidarity.

“A historic day for Europe! A massive recovery plan is adopted: a common loan to respond to the crisis in a united way and invest in our future. We had never done this (before)!” Macron tweeted.

“With Germany, we have made this plan possible…Since the euro (creation), we had not seen such a progress,” he added.

After four days of talks, EU leaders agreed on an unprecedented 1.82 trillion euros (2.08 trillion U.S. dollars) deal to confront the worst recession in the EU’s history.

The plan will be submitted to the European Parliament for approval.

The first physical summit of EU leaders had been scheduled to end on Saturday, but met deadlock due to disagreements over a number of issues including the overall size of the fund, the ratio of grants versus loans, the rebates offered to the wealthier countries and prerequisites for the use of the money. (1 euro = 1.14 U.S. dollars)