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France urges EU partners for more stimulus

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Friday urged his EU partners to gear up for a second round of economic stimulus to ensure Europe doesn’t lose ground to the US and China.

“The key question is what do we want? Do we want to play in the first league, or do we want to be left behind China and the United States,” Le Maire told reporters as he arrived for talks in Lisbon, Portugal.

“This is the question I will raise today: is it enough?” said Le Maire before meeting with his eurozone counterparts, in reference to the European recovery plan and other spending schemes that helped keep the EU economy from the cliff edge during the pandemic.

France is seeking an as yet unspecified investment plan to follow the 720 billion euro spending boost agreed by EU leaders last year that has been hailed as a landmark of European unity.

However, according to a European source close to the matter, a majority of finance ministers meeting in Lisbon were reluctant to open the debate, at least for now, and want to make sure the first plan gets up and running.

“A couple of countries said we need more, but there is definitely not a majority for a second stimulus plan,” the source said.

France, the eurozone’s second biggest economy, is understood to want to set up public investment schemes to boost innovation in key sectors, especially in high tech and fighting climate change.

Paolo Gentiloni, the EU economy commissioner, said that Europe was “of course” not finished with its efforts to get out of the shock of the pandemic.

“We know that we have a tremendous need of public investment in the next few years if we are serious with our green, and digital transitions,” he said.

“But now is the time to implement what we decided one year ago,” he said.

Germany, the bloc’s biggest power, is reluctant to move on to anything new and finance minister Olaf Scholz said that the first plan was already a “historic” accomplishment.

“It is the first time that we gave a very strong answer to fight an economic crisis in Europe,” Scholz said.

The first payments from the recovery plan, known as Next Generation EU, are expected to land this summer.