Summit Takeaways

Kathimerini sums up the main sticking points of the European Council and writes that the most difficult summit guests were the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Rutte had insisted on the need for unanimous approval for recovery payouts, causing a rift with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. In the end, the compromise also led to an increase of the rebates for Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden. The idea of protecting the rule of law by linking Member States' compliance with EU funds was another hurdle that had to be dealt with throughout the meetings. The initial budget plan had suggested that serious infringements on the rule of law would lead to a suspension of funding. Ahead of the summit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had threatened to veto the deal if the wording did not change. The final wording that was accepted by Poland and Hungary vaguely refers to a regime of conditionality that would protect the budget.

Digi24 reports about the latest noise coming from the European Parliament in reaction to the European Council's long-term budget proposal. Parliament adopted a resolution on Thursday, threatening to reject the agreement on the Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) if it wasn't improved. While most European leaders have described the budget deal as historic, MEPs from several political groups have criticised the reduction in budget allocations for areas such as health, education, defense and research, as well as the weakened rule of law conditionality. The article points out that Romania would receive a total of €80 billion via the MFF and the recovery fund.

According to leaders' agreement on the recovery fund, Italy is to receive €209 billion of the €750 billion, which would come in form of both grants and loans. La Repubblica reports how the deal has been celebrated as a huge triumph by the government back home. During his speech in the Italian Senate, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was interrupted seven times by rounds of applause and a final standing ovation. The government has praised the deal for its potential to bring Italy's economy back on track and to prevent early elections in the country. Not everybody is pleased with Conte’s success, however. While the opposition has harshly criticised the conditions of the Recovery Fund, Conte's critics continue to doubt his leadership abilities and are questioning whether he can lead Italy through what will be a rocky recovery road.

The summit has left a lot of questions unanswered, especially when it comes to the proposal of linking the EU budget to Member States' compliance with the rule of law and fundamental EU values, writes Tagesspiegel. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been dodging journalists' questions about the compromise that was found on Tuesday regarding the rule of law conditionality, and has stated that more work on the proposal was needed. She also believes the issue is likely to come up again at one of the next EU summits. The new compromise formula was hammered out on Monday afternoon between a number of countries, including Germany, France and several Eastern European states. Meanwhile, Polish and Hungarian media are reporting that the idea of linking rule of law compliance to EU funds is completely off the table.