EU: Pandemic measures to total about $5.85 trillion
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union's top economy official said Monday that the recovery measures the EU and its 27 member states have in the works to emerge from the pandemic total around $5.85 trillion.
EU Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni told a European Parliament committee said that if comparisons are made with U.S. President Joe Biden's pandemic stimulus relief package, the EU can confidently stand next to to Washington when all efforts are counted together.
“Measures taken until now from member states and the EU reach so far 4.8 trillion” euros, the Italian commissioner told legislators, sweeping aside criticism that authorities weren't doing enough compared with Washington.
The EU has agreed to a common recovery fund package of 750 billion euros ($910 billion), plus a 1.1 trillion euro ($1.3 trillion) seven-year budget that will be strongly geared toward dealing with the unprecedented economic recession caused by COVID-19 that the bloc's 450 million citizens will have to overcome.
During his first 100 days in office, Biden has secured passage of a sweeping $1.9 trillion pandemic package to bring relief to 330 million Americans.
“If we look at it in a certain way, we could say that the U.S. reaction was stronger, faster than the European one,” Gentiloni said.
Take note, however, “that we are not a federal state. And so we have to consider both member states and the EU level,” bringing the total to $4.8 trillion.
“So we are not used to mixing all the different interventions. But if we do this, we reach an amount which is not so different from the effort of the United States,” Gentiloni said.
Many major social affairs and economic policies are still run at a national level in the European Union, and stimulus measures for companies and the workforce also have a...
