A moment of truth for the EU
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2020
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A crunch meeting of EU leaders today aims to finally show Italy and others solidarity in the struggle against coronavirus.
A plan is gaining momentum for the European Commission to raise a trillion-plus-euro fund to invest in the recovery of the European economy, something that could mark a major step towards federalism if it succeeds, but many fear could trigger the unravelling of the European project if it fails to win approval.
Manuela Saragosa, herself half-Dutch and half-Italian, asks whether the plan can bridge the bitter divide between her two parent nations over how to handle the crisis. Dutch economist Esther Rijswijk says the Netherlands won't want to hand over money without conditions attached, but Italian MP Lorenzo Fioramonti says the very word "conditions" has become a taboo in an increasingly angry and euro-sceptical Italy.
Meanwhile, one of the plan's co-authors, former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, explains why he thinks he's come up with a solution that avoids the usual messy EU fudge.
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Picture: EU flag containing viruses instead of stars; Credit: muchomor/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Linda and I'm Mercy. |
| 0:02.4 | And we're the presenters of Parentland and the BBC World Service, the podcast for anyone interested in raising children. |
| 0:09.1 | Before you listen to your chosen podcast, we want to let you know that Parentland is back. |
| 0:13.4 | To help answer any questions you have about parenting during the pandemic. |
| 0:17.8 | From Delhi to Dakar, Soweta to Shanghai, if you have questions about staying healthy, |
| 0:22.6 | the best way to explain coronavirus to your kids, |
| 0:25.1 | or just surviving the family during lockdown. |
| 0:28.0 | Our parent land experts might have the answers you need. |
| 0:31.3 | So search for Parentland wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:36.9 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC with me, Manuela Saragossa. Coming up, |
| 0:43.3 | saving the European Union from the economic devastation of the coronavirus pandemic. |
| 0:49.4 | At a moment like this, with an existential crisis of this magnitude, I think it would be a disaster for the European |
| 0:55.3 | and not to change this narrative and to show that we want to be together. We hear what's at stake |
| 1:00.4 | and why southern and northern EU members have been arguing, will the EU get away with muddling |
| 1:07.0 | through this time? The European Union has always been two step forwards, one step back. |
| 1:12.6 | It's messy. We are keeping alive a euro. So I think they will come up with something. |
| 1:18.7 | That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:25.6 | EU leaders will be meeting today, virtually of course, they'll be talking via video link, |
| 1:31.2 | which means they'll have the usual problems to grapple with, dodgy connections, muttering off |
| 1:36.0 | mic, and of course unflattering camera angles. But the biggest problem of all that they have to |
| 1:42.0 | solve is what to do about shoring up the economies of the European Union's member states. |
| 1:47.4 | The European Commission, that's the EU's administrative arm, estimates that the coronavirus pandemic may wipe a tenth off the EU's economic output. |
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