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Taoiseach Micheal Martin says Ireland will be a net contributor to the €750 billion Covid 19 recovery fund. Mr Martin said that a European-wide economic recovery was more important for Ireland than what the country “got back” from the overall fund.
2/ The Taoiseach said that despite deadlock in talks late last night over how payments from the fund would be vetted by member states, there was evidence that leaders had, at the last minute, taken a step back to look at the “bigger picture.”
3/ "[Leaders] are saying very clearly we’ve got to make up our minds, notwithstanding all our national member state interests. Given the enormity of Covid we need to put a package together that can respond to Covid. People have died, are dying from Covid.”
4/ The Taoiseach suggested that EU institutions, and not EU leaders, were best placed to vet member states in terms of sticking with the reform programmes upon which Covid money would be conditional.
5/ “The capacity of the [European] Council to start getting into the detail of programmes would be a very difficult proposition down the road in terms of unintended consequences.
6/ Mr Martin said the Netherlands was not looking for a long term veto on the disbursement of Covid funds to member states. “I think to be fair to the Netherlands, I don’t think they envisage this would be a routine, regular [occurance]...
7/ "Rather Mark Rutte is saying this would be an exceptional mechanism that would be deployed in an exceptional way.”
8/ Mr Martin said that the size of Ireland’s allocation under the recovery fund was less important than the ability for the European economy to recover as a whole.
9/ “Remember, Ireland’s a net contributor here. We’re coming in with strong bona fides. We’re saying Europe has to recover because we’re an exporting nation. We want a European-wide recovery because that will help to underpin an Ireland wide recovery.
10/ “That’s the stance we’re taking as opposed to looking at how much will we get back. We’ll be a net contributor at the end of the day out of all of this in any event."
