European Union leaders have taken a step for setting up a joint financial fund for economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis, after the 27 leaders agreed to request the Commission to work out the details of this joint effort, sources in Brussels said.

During the teleconference, the 27 authorised the Commission to present this Recovery Fund by 6 May.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, during his speech at the Summit, stressed that Greece fully backed the urgent creation of the Recovery Fund in addition to the operation of the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF).

The Prime Minister agreed with the view that this Fund should be very large (huge) and that it should be financed with some kind of common long-term debt instrument.

He reiterated his proposal he presented in the past for a common European approach regarding the patents of a possible coronavirus vaccine in order to ensure equal access for Member States to it when we reach the phase of mass vaccination.