EU Bishops welcome Covid-19 Recovery Fund

By Vatican News

Reacting to the historic agreement reached by EU leaders early Tuesday on a €750 billion coronavirus recovery fund and the bloc’s long-term budget, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich said he is thankful for “a solution which expresses solidarity inside the European Union.”

The overall EU budget for the period of 2021-27 will amount to €1.82 trillion. It includes the €750 billion recovery instrument to help relaunch the European economy after the Covid-19 crisis as well as the bloc’s ordinary budget.

Speaking to Vatican News just hours after the conclusion of the four-day Summit in Brussels, Cardinal Hollerich, President of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), said he is grateful for the deal “because Europe is not conceivable without solidarity.”

Archbishop Hollerich also expressed his hope that “this recovery fund will help the weakest economies, the economies most touched by the pandemic to grow, and to be there for people, for the real people who constitute the European Union, so that also the next generation can live in peace and in certain prosperity.”

At the end of May, the European bishops had welcomed the proposal by the EU for a recovery fund to deal with the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic. On that occasion they appealed for justice for the most vulnerable and the environment and asked leaders to put solidarity at the heart of discussions.