"I am convinced we will be able to converge," Breton told France Inter radio.

In March, France, Italy, Spain and six other countries called for work on a common debt instrument issued by a European institution to cushion the effects of the pandemic, which is on course to trigger a global recession.

However, Germany and the Netherlands have voiced opposition to such a mechanism, and the nine states who supported it did not specify how it would work.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Alex Richardson)