BRUSSELS, April 23 -- Leaders of European Union (EU) states, though under mounting pressure to prop up their virus-stricken economies, failed to nail down a much-awaited recovery plan at a video-summit on Thursday.

"No consensus is reached today. But it is an answer that we will have to provide, and I believe that our Europe has no future if we can not provide this answer," French President Emmanuel Macron said following the summit. "If we let part of Europe fall, all of Europe will fall with it."

Macron revealed that disagreements over the size and shape of the rescue package remained.

"NEEDED AND URGENT"

In previous video-summits on the pandemic, one of the sticking points is the so-called "European recovery bond" promoted by Italy and seven other eurozone states, but not favored by some others. Italy wanted the bond to lift member states out of a recession and increase spending on healthcare.

Macron said that the EU must provide budgetary transfers and not just loans to its worst-hit regions and sectors to help restart the economy.

"At the moment we are living through, these transfers must be transfers by subsidies, real budgetary transfers," said Macron.

Nevertheless, leaders of the 27-bloc agreed that a recovery fund is "needed and urgent," said President of the European Council Charles Michel in his conclusions on the meeting. But no specific amount of the fund was unveiled.

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