France's Macron meets Spain's Sanchez in Paris

French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Paris on Wednesday. Sanchez headed to Paris after meeting with his Swedish counterpart in Stockholm. EU leaders will meet in Brussels on July 17 and 18 in their first face-to-face summit since lockdowns began in March, and the discussions are expected to be filled with division.

Leaders of the bloc have held a flurry of one-on-one meetings to persuade cautious Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria and Denmark to drop their opposition to the 750-billion euro recovery fund proposal. Under the Commission's proposal, which is backed by Germany and France as well as southern countries such as Spain and Italy that are seeking funds to rebuild their hard-hit economies, two-thirds of the recovery fund would be in the form of grants.