Taoiseach Leo Varadkar called for urgent support for farmers at a video conference meeting of EU leaders held on Thursday.

He also called for a plan to be developed to ensure EU states have public health controls at airports before business and tourist travel can resume.

The Taoiseach also said the EU needed to scale up its capacity to produce medical equipment and create stockpiles in advance of a possible second wave of the pandemic.

At the meeting, the leaders backed a €500 billion package aimed at tackling the problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and asked that it come into effect by 1 June.

They also discussed the need for a ‘recovery fund’, asking the European Commission to carry out more detailed work on how this could be linked to the EU budget.

Disputes

There have been disputes between EU member states on how best to fund a recovery, with resistance from some countries to any idea of sharing debt.

The Commission is also planning a sector-by-sector analysis on the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis so as to better target supports necessary for recovery.

An Taoiseach welcomed this, highlighting in particular the acute difficulties in agriculture resulting from a collapse in exports and prices.