BRUSSELS — After nearly five days of intense haggling, European Union leaders early on Tuesday stepped up to confront one of the gravest challenges in the bloc’s history, agreeing to a landmark spending package to rescue their economies from the ravages of the pandemic. The 750 billion euro ($857 billion) stimulus agreement, spearheaded by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France, sent a strong signal of solidarity even as it exposed deep new fault lines in a bloc reshaped by Britain’s exit. The deal was notable for its firsts: European countries will raise large sums by selling bonds collectively, rather than individually; and much of that money will be handed out to member nations hit hardest by the pandemic as grants that do not have to be repaid, and not as loans that would swell their national debts. Those extraordinary steps reflected a difficult consensus among members: that the scale of the crisis facing them required groundbreaking measures to ensure the bloc’s legitimacy, stability and prosperity.

Source: New York Times July 21, 2020 03:39 UTC