Time for EU to quit crisis stumble

THE former European Commission President, Jacques Delors, broke with tradition last week to make a rare intervention and warn that a lack of solidarity posed “a mortal danger to the European Union”. As the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic continues to cause untold destruction to the lives and livelihoods of the citizens of Europe, it was a timely intervention which should be heard and acted upon before it is too late. Throughout the past decade, the European Union has faced several travails, from the existential crisis threatened by Eurozone bailouts to the migration crisis to Brexit most recently, yet it survives, although hardly thrives. When this storm is weathered, and there were hopeful signs last week that the pandemic has peaked in Europe, the opportunity will present itself for the EU to regroup and plan a progressive path forward. That opportunity should not be squandered.

When the crisis hit Italy first, before spreading in its most deadly form to Spain, the EU was slow to react, a hesitation which allowed China and Russia to send medical supplies at a time when nearest neighbours failed to respond. This provided an opportunity for certain critical voices to highlight the initial ‘me-first’ response in Europe, which led some countries to decide to impose export bans on vital medical equipment and put up border controls that left other European citizens stranded. Since then Europe has somewhat got its act together. Germany, Austria and Luxembourg have opened hospitals to treat patients from the hardest hit countries. France and Germany also donated many face masks to Italy. Indeed, Covid-19 swabs taken in Ireland last week are being examined in Germany. These and other such measures, while late, are still welcome and reassuring, but the fissures in Europe have become all too apparent all too soon again.

The pandemic has reopened the wounds of the Eurozone crisis, resurrecting stereotypes about “profligate” southern Europeans and “hard-hearted” northerners. Questions have been asked in the north why countries in the south did not have the fiscal buffers to deal with the financial shock of the coronavirus, which in turn has given rise to a sharp reaction in the south, as it buries its dead. It is evident that Europe is still entrenched in two camps over how to respond to the economic fallout caused by Covid-19. France, Italy, Spain and at least half a dozen others, including Ireland, want to break with convention by issuing joint Eurozone debt, so-called “corona bonds”. Germany, Austria and the Netherlands continue to oppose the idea.

At the same time legislation passed by the Hungarian parliament last week enables the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, to rule by decree without a time-limit. The European Commission put out a statement calling for emergency measures adopted by member states to be proportionate but it has been criticised for not making any reference to Hungary. This prompted Ursula von der Leyen, the new president of the European Commission, to say that she was particularly concerned with the situation in Hungary. In the past, the EU has improvised its way out of the many difficulties it has faced. The time has come, however, for the bloc to act on the front foot. It cannot continue to stumble from crisis to crisis, not least because there are currently other international players, to the east and, regrettably, to the west all too willing to take advantage of an EU evidently illequipped to deal with unforeseen crises.