国际英语资讯:European leaders fail to nail down recovery plan as infections top 1.1 mln_时事

国际英语资讯:European leaders fail to nail down recovery plan as infections top 1.1 mln

Michel said the recovery fund "shall be of a sufficient magnitude, targeted towards the sectors and geographical parts of Europe most affected, and be dedicated to dealing with this uNPRecedented crisis."

As a result of the video-summit, leaders tasked the European Commission to "analyze the exact needs and to urgently come up with a proposal that is commensurate with the challenge we are facing."

They also mandated the European Commission to link the recovery fund with the bloc's 2021-2027 budget.

Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, said the EU's executive arm would start working on the details.

"MOVING ON THIN ICE"

Ahead of the video summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned in her speech in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, that the numbers of new cases of COVID-19 and recoveries in her country were only a "fragile interim success."

"We are not living in the final phase of the pandemic, but are still at its beginning," said Merkel. "We are moving on thin ice."

The EU video summit, the fourth of its kind, came as 1,130,393 Europeans have contracted the coronavirus and over 110,000 of them have died, according to the latest data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

As of 10:00 CET on Thursday, the five European countries reporting most cases are Spain (208,389), Italy (187,327), Germany (148,046), United Kingdom (133,495) and France (119,151), showed the ECDC data.