In Brussels they are called the “Frugal four”. Others, less courteous, call them “stingy”. These are the four countries, Austria, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden who have opposed in recent months draft european budget judged too generous then to coronabonds and who, proud of their surplus public finances, willingly lecture the indebted countries of southern Europe. Last Monday, they got on a new workhorse, refusing the principle of 500 billion euro recovery plan budgetary transfers to the countries most affected by the coronavirus crisis that Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron had just proposed.
The ” four frugal »Planned to write their own contribution to European recovery but the Dutch Prime Minister Mark rutte delivered most of their sales pitch on Wednesday. He first recalled that they agreed to “ help others But that this support should be done with loans and not with donations. It’s also what Twitter said, Sebastian Kurz, the Austrian conservative chancellor, as soon as the Franco-German proposal was announced.
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