European Union leaders on Saturday extended their summit by an extra day in the hope they were finally closing in on a deal for an unprecedented 1.85 trillion euro (US$2.1 trillion) EU budget and coronavirus recovery fund. So we didn’t get a breakthrough tonight.”The Franco-German alliance is seen as key to any major deal within the 27-nation EU. The pandemic has sent the EU into a tailspin and around 135,000 of its citizens have died from the coronavirus. That comes on top of the seven-year 1 trillion-euro EU budget that leaders were fighting over even before the virus slammed their continent. Kurz said major issues still under discussion include linking rule of law guarantees in EU nations to the allocation of funds to member states.

Source: The Standard July 19, 2020 02:15 UTC