The European Commission said on Tuesday it allocated a EUR 1 billion (CZK 26 billion) loan to Czechia under the Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) instrument to help the country in its job preservation efforts.
The financing will help the country cover unexpected costs to preserve employment, such as rob retention programs that the country has introduced as a response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Commission said in a statement.
The loan to Czechia is part of a financial package worth 9 billion euro that also includes loans to six other EU member states – Croatia, Spain, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, and Slovakia.
This financial support is specifically targeted to assist member states to address sudden increases in public expenditure in response to the Covid-19 outbreak.
This was designed to preserve employment, including self-employment and other related measures. It is a 15-year Loan.
Specifically, the SURE instrument acts as a second line of defense, supporting short-time work schemes and similar measures, to help the Member States protect jobs and thus employees and self-employed against the risk of unemployment and loss of income.
Loans are underpinned by a system of voluntary guarantees from Member States. Each Member State’s contribution to the overall amount of the guarantee corresponds to its relative share in the total gross national income (GNI) of the European Union, based on the 2020 EU budget.
