Tensions arise as EU leaders mull huge virus recovery plan

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders are preparing to thrash out a massive recovery plan to help resuscitate their coronavirus-ravaged economies as some citizens start heading cautiously back to work. But tensions are lingering ahead of Thursday’s video-conference summit amid old differences over how, and even whether, to share the debt burden. The leaders of the EU’s 27 nations will endorse a package worth just over half a trillion euros aimed at helping to rebuild health systems, pay lost wages and rescue companies going bust. But the recovery plan must be bigger. Eurogroup President Mario Centeno says “the recovery starts when the lockdown begins to end, and we expect this to occur in the coming weeks.”