After more than three days of high-level talks, work on the sidelines and discussions in varying geographies, European Union finance ministers reached a compromise agreement that guarantees a package of more than € 500 billion to support the Member States in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

In the end, Mário Centeno highlighted the "political will" and "flexibility" shown to use mechanisms that were created during the previous crisis and "make them relevant and capable of responding to this crisis". And insisting on the idea that solidarity is the way to recover from the impact of the outbreak, the leader of the Eurogroup declared that "it is imperative that we grow together and not divided".

The transfer of the Netherlands was instrumental in unblocking the agreement, since it agreed to soften the conditions of access to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) precautionary credit line (ECCL), provided that this money is used to exclusively finance direct or indirect costs. "with the health sector, namely in Covid-19's" health, cure and prevention "expenses.

Haia had as one of the battle horses to ensure that the financing of the MEE would only be used for medical expenses and ended up abdicating the intended economic conditions associated with the MEE, a hypothesis that Italy rejected outright.

It was precisely the feud between Italy and the Netherlands that prevented an agreement at Tuesday's meeting, which lasted for 16 hours. This afternoon these two countries were joined by France, Germany and Spain for private discussions that ended up unblocking the impasse and, dragging on, delaying the start of this Eurogroup meeting in an enlarged format with about five hours late.

Countries that resort to this mechanism are only committed to the pursuit of fiscal consolidation policies within the scope of the already existing rules of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) - which are currently suspended to provide greater capacity to respond to the crisis - and within the scope of coordination of the European Semester. For countries that are not part of the Eurozone, the balance of payments financial support mechanism will provide the necessary support.

These credit lines made available by the euro rescue fund, adapted to the "concrete challenge" of responding to the health crisis, will be available within two weeks after approval by the European Council and will allow you to borrow on favourable terms up to 2% of the GDP of each one of the 27 member states, with a total value close to 240 billion euros. This instrument will be available until the pandemic has been overcome.

Three safety nets to support 540 million
There are three safety nets presented at a press conference as the "common and coordinated response to European needs", in the words of Paolo Gentiloni, Commissioner for Economic Affairs. In addition to the access to the ESM as a "safety net for the Member States", the Portuguese Minister of Finance also confirmed that there is an agreement for instruments to support workers and companies.

To help self-employed and self-employed workers to face this "unprecedented pressure", the "temporary" SURE instrument (proposed by the European Commission) will be launched, which will allow lending up to € 100 billion to the most affected countries.

The other safety net is related to the support to companies in difficulties, but mainly aimed at SMEs. The European Investment Bank (EIB) will launch 200 billion euro credit lines to "create a pan.european shield" to support the business fabric, Centeno said.