Eurozone finance ministers are expected to finalise a scheme on Friday for member states to access coronavirus loan, but no progress is expected on a larger, contentious recovery fund to weather the crisis.
EU leaders had agreed in April to a credit line facility for member states to cover direct and indirect healthcare costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
They gave finance ministers until June 1 to get the scheme up and running.
READ ALSO:Woods, Mickelson, Manning and Brady Showdown Set for May 24
However, the issue of how to manage the economic fallout of COVID-19 had reopened acrimonious divisions between EU capitals, with several economically weaker southern member states set to suffer more than their northern neighbours.
Friday’s talks came after the European Commission predicted a recession of historic proportions and a patchy recovery.
The commission had been tasked with drafting a recovery plan after member states failed to agree on the size and financing of a fund expected to be worth at least 1 trillion euros (1.1 trillion dollars).
The credit line one of three strands of the European Union’s economic response to the crisis that had been approved would be issued by the eurozone bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism.
However, the scheme had become unpopular among those likely to need it most, having been tainted by memories of the eurozone crisis a decade ago and fears of rigorous economic scrutiny.
The commission sought to allay these concerns in a letter during the week to Mario Centeno, who heads the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers.
“Monitoring should only focus on whether the credit is being spent on healthcare costs and should not entail “ad hoc on-site missions,” the commission’s Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis and EU Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni had proposed.