Yahoo Finance’s Edmund Heaphy joins the On The Move panel to break down how the UK is faring during the coronavirus outbreak.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: We want to head across the Atlantic, and we're joined by Edmund Heaphy who's going to explain to us what has been going on in the eurozone and the attempts to stimulate the economy and then, of course, the latest on Boris Johnson. Edmund.

EDMUND HEAPHY: Yes. Anyone who covered Eurogroup summits during the European-sovereign-debt crisis will not be one bit surprised that ministers from the eurozone failed to reach agreement on new stimulus measures for the coronavirus crisis, even after a 16-hour long marathon conference call. This time it's the Netherlands and Italy who are at loggerheads with one another.

Eurozone leaders want to release new funding from the European Stability Mechanism, which is basically the bloc's emergency bailout funds. But when countries borrow from this fund, they typically have to agree to a bunch of conditions and stipulations around future spending, economic reforms, and budgetary controls. Basically they have to agree to implement austerity measures if they borrow from the 500 billion euro funds.

According to reports, the Italians signaled that they were willing to compromise, but they really don't want any kind of stipulations on receiving funding. The Dutch, however, have remained pretty hard line.

Speaking today, German finance minister Olaf Scholtz reiterated his country's stance in favor of somewhat relaxing the conditions on the fund.

The Italians then are also pushing for the Eurogroup statement to include a reference to the joint issuance of debt by the 19 members of the currency area, also known as eurobonds or, more recently, coronabonds. But the Dutch, again, are staunchly opposed to any such mention, and the current draft of the statement instead just calls for the use of innovative financial instruments to tackle the crisis.

Leaders made much more progress on other measures, however, such as the temporary 100 billion euro unemployment reinsurance scheme and a boost to the lending capacity of the European Investment Bank. The leaders will reconvene and hope to reach agreement on Thursday.

Meanwhile then in London, the prime minister's office said today that Boris Johnson is responding to treatment and remains clinically stable after his second night in intensive care at St. Thomas's Hospital in Central London. He has not needed the support of a ventilator, but a spokesperson said he remains in hospital for close monitoring.

There's still a lot of debate about how the UK government is making decisions without Johnson at the helm, however, given there are very few precedents of a prime minister being incapacitated during a major crisis like this.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Edmund Heaphy, thank you very--