Coronavirus: EU launches “Team Europe” package to support partner countries with more than €20 bln

The objective of the “Team Europe” approach is to combine resources from the EU, its Member States, and financial institutions, in particular the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The European Commission and the European Investment Bank have already pledged financial support amounting to more than €15.6 billion from existing programmes. EU Member States underlined today their commitment to contribute to this joint endeavour and to make similar contributions, as well as and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The overall figure of the “Team Europe” package reaches more than 20 billion euros.

The EU will help the most vulnerable countries in Africa, the EU’s neighbourhood – the Western Balkans, the Eastern Partner countries, the Middle East and North Africa, parts of Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. It will focus also on the people most at risk, including children, women, the elderly, and disabled people, as well as migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons and their host communities.

The support of the European Union will focus on:

·        Responding to the immediate health crisis and the resulting humanitarian needs. This will include supporting the response plans of the World Health Organisation and the United Nations, and providing humanitarian support in affected countries;

·        Strengthening health, water and sanitation systems, as well as partner countries’ capacities and preparedness to deal with the pandemic; and

·        Mitigating the immediate social and economic consequences, including support to the private sector with a focus on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, and government reforms to reduce poverty.

The EU, as global actor and major contributor to the international aid system, will promote a coordinated multilateral response, in partnership with the United Nations, International Financial Institutions, as well as the G7 and the G20.

The “Team Europe” package was launched in the context of a videoconference of the EU Development ministers, chaired by High Representative Josep Borrell. Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen and Olivér Várhelyi, Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, presented the proposal for the approach as described in the Joint Communication by the Commission and the High Representative on a global response to fight the pandemic, adopted on 8 April 2020.