On May 27, 2020, while outlining its new proposals for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) that will determine the budget of the EU for the next 7 years, the European Commission proposed that on top of the “normal” budget, there should be a temporary Recovery Fund of up to 750 billion euro; the Fund should be financed through bonds that the Commission would be authorized to issue. This proposal had been foreshadowed a few days earlier by a joint initiative from Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, also indicating the creation of a “Recovery Fund” of 500 billion euro. If adopted, the fund would represent a game changer in the decade-long history of European integration. Even with the Recovery Fund’s temporary character, the EU has never seen a similar display of solidarity and joint financial action. Although allowing European institutions to issue common bonds is not in itself a novelty, the scale of the proposed program is.

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