MOSCOW, July 22. /TASS/. The outcome of the EU summit may be called successful despite the remaining disagreements in the community, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said in an interview for TASS Wednesday.
"We can say already that, from the standpoint of substance, this was a success for the EU. To agree on budgets for 2021-2027 was a highly complicated task. Many doubted that this task could be solved at all, considering the divide that currently exists in the EU," Grushko said.
The senior diplomat opined that the adopted program of aid to the regions, most affected by the pandemic, is also a successful outcome of the summit.
However, the situation in the EU is complicated and the line of divide goes along many directions, the Deputy Foreign Minister said.
"This is the East-West [divide], closer to the security sphere. This is also the North-South [divide] in many regards: the thrifty nations versus those affected by the pandemic, who strived to comply with the EU budgetary discipline demands even before that," he explained.
Besides, the EU member nations will have to solve maters of common foreign policy, "which has its projections on the EU’s internal state." Grushko named relations with the US, China and Russia as the main directions of the EU’s foreign policy.
He noted that it is too early to provide final and detailed assessment of the summit’s outcome: "it is necessary to look from the specialists’ point of view, how sustainable these instruments will be, how well they will correlate to the real demands."
About the EU Summit
The EU Summit, which took place between July 17 and July 21, adopted the seven-year budget plan of 1,074.3 billion for the commonwealth and made a decision to create a non-budgetary 750 billion Euro fund for restoration of the EU economy. The European Commission will draw all money for the fund as bonds with repayment before 2058. Of those 750, 390 billion will be distributed among the most affected countries and EU regions as grants, while the remaining 390 billion will be distributed as preferential loans. Almost 209 billion Euro will be provided to Italy as the most affected by the coronavirus pandemic.