Statement by President von der Leyen on the results of the Coronavirus Global Response international pledging event

I am very proud and I am relieved that the start of this very important project was so successful.

The world showed extraordinary unity for the common good. And Europe has made a significant contribution. We got EUR 7.4 billion today and - the exchange rate is friendly to us - it is more than USD 8 billion. Of these USD 8 billion, ‘team Europe' - that is the European Union and its Member States - contributed more than EUR 4 billion.

I think this is a strong signal of solidarity and of unity. But we all know we still have a steep climb ahead of us to defeat this virus worldwide.

Thanks once again to all who have contributed to this success!

I still remember the day in mid-March, when I got a phone call from my friend Victor Dzau from the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. He convinced me of the need for Europe to take a leading role in this initiative. Then exciting weeks followed; hard work, lots of phone calls with world leaders.

And I also owe a big, big thank you to many colleagues from the European Commission and their services who worked so hard to make today's success possible.

Now, let us move on from today, it was a good starting point.

The global response to coronavirus must also include civil society and the global community of citizens. And this will be the next milestone in this marathon. We are already working on this with NGOs and other partners and we will announce news soon.

So in sum, this will be a long global fight and the European Union is taking responsibility.