THE Prime Minister of Portugal, Antonio Costa, shunned the attitude that Holland’s Minister of Economy displayed with Spain during an EU council meeting.

The council meeting which united all European leaders was focused on reaching a consensus on what measures should be taken within the Union to help member states economically.

Pedro Sanchez, President of Spain, as well as Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte were both present at the meeting when Wopke Hoekstra, Holland’s Minister of Economy who is against the idea of coronabonos, said that Brussels should investigate countries like Spain for not having a budgetary margin to fight the pandemic, despite the fact that the euro has been growing for the last seven years.

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At a press conference after the meeting, Costa criticised Hoekstra’s comments as “disgusting, mean-spirited and contrary to the discourse of the European Union”.

He reminded member states that, “if we do not respect each other and do not understand that we are currently facing a common challenge, nobody will understand what the European Union is about, we have to have to be able to respond together,” Costa followed by saying, “that the virus was not created or imported by Spain.”

Furthermore, the Portuguese Prime Minister considered the EU’s response to the current economic crisis being caused by the coronavirus as “manifestly insufficient.” He insisted on the need to collaborate and issue joint debt through the so-called ‘coronabonos.’