Italy calls on EU to make decision on recovery plan in July

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has called on the European Union to decide quickly on a recovery plan for the bloc, ahead of a summit where leaders are to discuss multibillion-euro plans to support the EU’s national economies.

“This time, we will all win or we will all lose,’’ Conte told parliament on Wednesday in Rome, meeting with loud applause.

In a speech about European policy, he called on the EU to decide on recovery plans “in July,” adding that the bloc should not consider compromising on the scale of the plan.

His comments came before an EU summit scheduled for Friday and Saturday, when the bloc’s 27 leaders are to discuss an ambitious 750-billion-euro (857-billion-dollar) recovery plan, consisting of 500 billion Euros in grants and 250 billion Euros in loans.

However, it remains unclear whether a decision will be made then, as a group of countries dubbed the Frugal Four, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden has been pushing against grants, insisting aid be issued as loans tied to binding economic reforms.

Italy’s battered economy has been particularly hard-hit by the health crisis, and the country recorded 35,000 deaths due to the coronavirus.

Report says the country depends heavily on tourism, which has yet to recover, and is looking to Brussels for support.