PARIS (Reuters) - France warned on Wednesday it would not give its blessing to the European Union’s next long-term budget if wasn’t big enough to tackle the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said the EU had “no choice” but to set up a fund that “could issue common debt with a common guarantee” and has also called for the future EU budget currently being discussed to be bigger than its current size.

“The president was clear on this: we will not give our agreement to a budget which doesn’t change enough to take into account the response to this crisis,” a French presidency official said.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has sought to ease opposition in some northern countries such as Germany and the Netherlands to the joint issuance of debt by proposing a temporary European recovery fund strictly focused on future investments.

While France is open to the idea of creating the fund within the EU’s budget, Le Maire said on Tuesday that it would be more effective if it was set up as a standalone special purpose vehicle.

On Wednesday, the French presidency official said France would rather have short stop-gap EU budgets than agreeing to a “bad deal” on the so-called multiannual financial framework (MFF), the EU’s long-term budget for 2021-2027.

“We will have, wherever the recovery fund is located, a discussion on the MFF, and for that you need unanimity,” the official said.

“For the moment, we’d rather have transition budgets than a bad deal on the MFF, regardless of this recovery fund. The approval of France and other countries will be indispensable on this point,” the official said.

France also backs a Spanish proposal for a “recovery fund” for the EU in principle, the official said, adding that the terms can be discussed but it should have long debt maturities.

“What’s important is the principles: that the amounts are not ridiculously small -- they should be at least several points of European GDP,” the official said.

“We must reinforce transfers between European countries at least temporarily during the crisis. And we also need joint debt. Again, not to mutualise past debt, but to fund the necessary joint post-crisis expenses,” he said.

The French official also said he thought re-opening Europe’s open-border Schengen area to non-European travellers before the summer seemed unrealistic, but that checks at internal borders such the Franco-German one should continue for the shortest time possible.