The EU’s SURE loans are designed to help member states cover sudden spikes in public spending to preserve jobs, such as national part-time financing programmes and support for the self-employed amid the coronavirus pandemic.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Ana Blaskovic writes on the 25th of August, 2020, four months after the idea was initially put on paper, the European Commission (EC) submitted a proposal to allocate 81.4 billion euros from the SURE instrument to fifteen member states to the council.
According to the proposal, Croatia would receive one billion euros in so-called soft loans to mitigate the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Once the proposal is approved by the council, these loans will help member states to cover sudden spikes in public spending on job preservation, such as national part-time funding programmes and support for the self-employed.
After consulting with the EU member states which requested support and assessing their requests, a maximum of 27.4 billion euros was proposed to help Italy, followed by Spain with 21.3 billion euros, Poland with 11.2 billion euros and Belgium with 7.2 billion euros. 8 billion euros.
4 billion euros were on offer for Romania, 2.7 billion to Greece, 2 billion to the Czech Republic, 1.1 billion to Slovenia, and one hundred million euros less was being offered to Croatia. Portugal and Hungary have already submitted their own respective official applications to Brussels and they are currently in the process of being evaluated. Countries that have not yet submitted theirs are free to submit an official request.
Back in April, the European Commission proposed the SURE instrument, worth 100 billion euros, as part of a response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Loans from this instrument will be based on a system of voluntary guarantees from member states in accordance with the EU’s share of gross national income.
“We have to do everything to protect jobs and allow people to earn a living. SURE is a clear symbol of solidarity in an unprecedented crisis,” said EC President Ursula von der Leyen.
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