EU eyes mass investment through next budget to restart growth

The European Union's next long-term budget should be used to sponsor economic recovery after the coronavirus pandemic, the heads of the bloc's Brussels-based institutions said on Wednesday. EU leaders' chairman, European Council President Charles Michel, said the bloc's 27 national heads of states and governments will discuss during a videoconference summit on April 23 reworking their plans for their 2021-27 joint budget.

European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said: "The next European budget has to be the European answer to the corona crisis." She added that the budget would need to mobilize "huge investments" in the first one, two, or three years.