Remarks by President Charles Michel after the video conference of the members of the European Council on COVID-19 - Main contents

We had the occasion for the third time in three weeks to have a European Council meeting with a video conference.

It was important to monitor the situation in order to be certain that we are able to do the follow-up of what we have taken as political orientations the last weeks.

You know that we have decided to work on five concrete priorities.

First, we continue to take measures and to coordinate with the member states in order to limit and to reduce the spread of the virus. It is essential because it is important to try to strengthen our health care system and to reduce and to limit the spread of the virus.

We have also taken important decisions regarding the borders, the internal borders and the external borders. And we have observed that we have made a lot of progress and you know that our priority is to reduce the non-essential travel of people. But at the same time, to maintain and even to guarantee the flow of goods, which is very important in order to avoid shortages and to protect as much as possible the single market.

The second important point is the medical equipment. How is it possible to provide more medical equipment, to assist the member states. We had the occasion to be informed about the progress we made in the different procedures, which have started on this topic. It is, of course, very important to continue all the efforts at the national level, at the European level, in order to provide equipment for health workers especially.

The third point is research, we will continue also at the international level. We had a video conference today with the G20, to be part of a common strong commitment in order to develop and to produce the vaccines we need as soon as possible and the therapies we need as soon as possible.

The fourth point relates to economic issues. We fully recognise that the crisis facing Europe and the world has economic - and thus social - consequences. It has therefore been very important to act quickly in the last few days. Member states have mobilised resources to support sectors directly affected by the highly restrictive measures introduced, which are having an economic impact.

It was also important to fully support the decision taken by the Commission and finance ministers to activate the suspension clause under the Stability and Growth Pact, which gives member states exceptional room for manoeuvre in these exceptional circumstances, and also to endorse the proposals made to give greater flexibility under the state aid rules.

The fifth point relates to the repatriation of EU citizens in third countries. Here too, the European Union and its member states are acting and must continue to act in order to try to bring back EU citizens in third countries who want to return home.

We had an extremely dense, intense and productive political exchange in which we looked ahead to the coming weeks and months. We will accordingly ask the Eurogroup to continue to work most intensively to come up with proposals to ensure that we are able to cope with this crisis, its economic impact and its impact on the stability of the European Union.

We also decided to task both myself and the President of the European Commission, in consultation with the various institutions and especially the European Central Bank, with working on a recovery plan and an exit strategy to prepare the coordination that will be needed as we gradually emerge from this crisis and have to mobilise all available resources to ensure the short-, medium- and long‑term well-being and prosperity of the European Union, EU citizens, families and all businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises.

In short, unity and solidarity are our permanent objectives. This requires us to be fully mobilised and to try and get everybody on board. We have shown that we are able to make progress together in trying to win this extremely difficult battle which we, the European Union, and the world are facing. And we all know that no country can win this battle alone. It is by working together in a spirt of cooperation, solidarity and unity that we can ensure a return to a more normal situation.