President hopes European Council will match Commission’s courage

Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, has said that he hoped the European Council would live up to the courage that he believed the European Commission had shown with its proposal for a recovery fund.

“There was a president of the European Commission who at a very difficult time took an important step for the euro and built a different Europe: Jacques Delors. Here, the president of the European Commission [Ursula von der Leyen] had a Delors moment a moment of courage, she set the bar very high. And the European Council is expected to be up to that standard,” De Sousa said on Thursday.

He was speaking at the end of a visit to a collective in the municipality of Almada, Setúbal district, and said that what they are talking about for Portugal is a very, very important help for the start-up of the Portuguese economy after the social costs of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, he stressed that it needs to be approved by the European Council, adding: “And I hope that the 27 countries and their leaders will be equal to what is expected of Europe because the big winner in all this is Europe. If Europe is united, strong, and investing in the future, it is Europe that wins.”

On Wednesday, the European Commission presented a proposal for a 750 billion euros recovery fund to minimise the economic and social effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which Portugal expects to receive 26.3 billion euros from.

The European Commission has proposed that 500 billion euros be channelled to member states through non-repayable grants and the remaining 250 billion euros in the form of loans.