ISLAMABAD: Euro­pean Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Wednesday said that debt rescheduling for the struggling economies hit by the Covid-19 pandemic was high on the bloc’s agenda.

Mr Borrell said this while talking to Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who called the former to discuss the situation arising out of the pandemic.

There has been a growing support for calls for providing relief to the countries laden with external debt so that fiscal space could be freed up for them to fight Covid-19. Pakistan, which itself is under heavy external debt burden, is one of the major voices demanding the rescheduling of loans.

Mr Qureshi has raised this issue in his recent conversations with his Asia and European counterparts. He again emphasised the need for debt relief for developing countries in his conversation with Mr Borrell and told him that the initiative was gaining traction. He expressed the hope that the European Union would continue to extend full support to the initiative.

Earlier, Foreign Minister Qureshi also spoke to his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud on this matter.

Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan said the proposal for debt restructuring was deliberated upon during the G-20 summit for helping countries tackle the economic consequences of Covid-19.

The summit held through video conferencing was hosted by Saudi Arabia.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2020