Brussels is under fire from EU governments for failing to target its planned €750bn recovery fund on economic damage caused by the coronavirus shutdown.
EU diplomats have raised concerns that the European Commission is proposing to use a series of “outdated” economic measures to determine how much member states will receive from a Recovery and Resilience Fund intended to heal Europe’s post-pandemic economy.
The complaints have emerged as EU governments pore over details of an unprecedented crisis-fighting tool which would give the commission the power to borrow €750bn from international capital markets. Known as Next Generation EU, the spending programme is divided into different pots, the biggest of which is a €560bn fund to support specified economic reforms in member states through a mixture of grants and loans.