It was supposed to be a "simple" European affair, where leading politicians sat down and agreed to spend all those hundreds of billions in debt that the ECB had agreed to monetize, thus providing a boost to their crashing economies. Alas, there is no such thing as "simple" in Europe, and after a third day of "marathon summit talks" - as the FT put it and for good reason as it is already the longest EU meeting since December 2000 - over Europe's proposed €750BN response to the coronavirus pandemic on Sunday, the European Union once again failed to overcome gulfs that have split north and south, and east and west, and may send the Euro - which has soared in recent weeks - tumbling lower as without a finalized recovery fund Europe's economy is set to disintegrate (even more).

The protracted summit in Brussels, which began on Friday morning, has laid bare deep differences over the size, design and conditions attached to a planned multibillion-euro package of loans and grants designed to revive Europe's economy after months of hibernation.

Yet even the biggest skeptics expected that it would be concluded by Sunday night, alas as Bloomberg reports European Union efforts to agree on the stimulus package faltered late Sunday "as leaders were unable to reconcile differences over how much of the recovery fund should be distributed through grants versus low-interest loans."