EU plan for virus aid package under fire

• Brussels plans to redirect money from existing funds to help countries with weak healthcare systems tackle the pandemic and aid their long-term economic recovery.

BRUSSELS: An EU effort to put together a 20-billion-euro aid package to help poor countries fight coronavirus came under fire Wednesday, and the bloc's diplomatic chief admitted it contained "no fresh money".

Brussels plans to redirect money from existing funds to help countries with weak healthcare systems tackle the pandemic and aid their long-term economic recovery.

EU officials fear that beating the pandemic in Europe alone will not be enough because, if it continues to rage elsewhere in the world, the virus will simply return in time.

German Development Minister Gerd Mueller said after talks with his 26 EU counterparts that the proposals did not go far enough.

"I do not consider the proposals to be sufficiently far-reaching but an important first step," Mueller said.

"It can't just be a matter of reprogramming funds -- we need a rescue umbrella for Africa as well and fresh money for that."

Africa has been identified as a particular concern because of its links to Europe and the poor state of healthcare in many of its countries.

The Norwegian Refugee Council's Europe director Edouard Rodier pointed to the Central African Republic as one example -- a population of five million people with only three ventilators available in the entire country.

The European Commission and European Investment Bank have pledged 15.6 billion euros ($16.9 billion), while commitments from EU member states and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development takes the total above 20 billion euros.

But EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell acknowledged after the development ministers' talks that "there is no fresh money".

Instead the money comes from redirecting existing funds to target coronavirus, including 5.2 billion euros in accelerated loans from the EIB, Borrell said.

Rodier warned that shifting money from one pot to another would not solve the problem.

"Clearly the solution cannot be to shift the resource required to meet existing critical needs to cover new developing needs -- we need to do both," Rodier said during an online conference on Wednesday.