Spain and EU commissioners call for common European debt instruments, newspaper reports

Europe needs debt mutualization and a common "Marshall Plan" to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, even as Germany dismissed calls for the debt-pooling idea.

EU leaders have tasked policymakers with finding a new way to finance a recovery from the Covid-19 outbreak, after Germany and the Netherlands ruled out calls from France, Italy and Spain to create a common debt instrument.

Germany, among other nations, has long been opposed to issuing common debt with other European nations, arguing that it would stop individual countries from pursuing structural reforms and balancing their budgets.

Helge Braun, head of the German chancellor's office in Berlin, told Frankfurter Allgemeine's Sunday edition that "liability and control need to be aligned."

Sanchez had echoed the...