ROME (Reuters) – Payments of the massive coronavirus stimulus approved by leaders of the European Union will start in the second half of next year, the bloc’s economy commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, was quoted as saying on Friday.
Countries could use a tenth in anticipation of the plan’s approval, however, Gentiloni said in an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, adding that the bloc would have to approve new resources, such as the digital tax and the CO2 tax, to repay the common debt between 2026 and 2056.
“Otherwise, individual countries will find themselves having to repay the money because Europe has not been able to repay the common debt,” Gentiloni said.
(Reporting by Giselda Vagnoni; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
