Coronavirus could be final straw for EU, European experts warn
Leaders are warned that if division prevails, pandemic will be more destructive than Brexit, migration and bailout crises
The
European Union has weathered the storms of eurozone bailouts, the migration crisis and Brexit, but some fear coronavirus could be even more destructive.
In a rare intervention
Jacques Delors, the former European commission president who helped build the modern EU, broke his silence last weekend to warn that lack of solidarity posed “a mortal danger to the European Union”.
Enrico Letta, a former prime minister of
Italy, has said the EU faces a “deadly risk” from the global pandemic. “We are facing a crisis that is different from previous crises,” he told the Guardian – partly, he said, because of the unpredictable progression of the virus, partly because “Europeanism” has been weakened by other crises of the past decade.
“The communitarian spirit of
Europe is weaker today than 10 years ago,” he said, adding that the biggest danger for the EU was “the Trump virus”.
If everyone took the strategy of “Italy first”, “Belgium first” or “Germany first”, he said, “we will all sink altogether”.
“This is definitely a make-it-or-break-it moment for the European project,” said Nathalie Tocci, a former adviser to the EU foreign policy chief. “If it goes badly this really risks being the end of the union. It fuels all the nationalist-populism.”
She points out, however, that so far Italy’s far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, has
plummeted in the polls, while the popularity of the lawprofessor-turned-prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has risen. “In some respects, the public actually want the rational, moderate, reassuring but firm kind of leader.”
Leaders are warned that if division prevails, pandemic will be more destructive than Brexit, migration and bailout crises
www.theguardian.com
Merkel’s moment of truth
Crisis offers German leader one last chance to embrace ‘more Europe.’
Just when it looked like Angela Merkel was going to ride quietly into the sunset, fate intervened.
Two weeks ago, the German leader’s biggest worry was finding a successor and a life after politics. Now she finds herself in the center of what many consider the most serious global crisis since World War II.
“The coronavirus pandemic is a human tragedy of potentially biblical proportions,” former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi
warned this week.
For better or worse, Merkel is the only European leader with either the experience or stature to take charge. The European Union’s current crop of chieftains — Council President Charles Michel, who spent one term as Belgian prime minister, and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, whose spotty reputation as a German minister precedes her — are both untested and unknown to most Europeans. The European Central Bank, a rock of stability when Draghi was in charge, has developed decidedly
shakier legs under Christine Lagarde, his successor.
That leaves Merkel — assuming she doesn’t have coronavirus (she was
exposed to the virus by a doctor a week ago, but the first two tests she took were negative).
[...]
A common criticism of Merkel’s handling of the eurozone crisis is that her strategy addressed the short-term crisis, not the currency’s underlying flaws.
That failure, her critics say, robbed her of a true European legacy.
While Merkel is revered by many on the center left outside of Germany, in particular in the U.S. and U.K., that’s mainly because they appreciate her for what she’s not: loud, bombastic or obnoxious.
The coronavirus crisis presents the German leader, whose term ends next year, with a final opportunity to push through the elusive “deeper European integration” most observers say is necessary to preserve both the euro and the European Union in the long term.
Over her long tenure as chancellor, Merkel has repeated time and again that Germany’s destiny lies in Europe. Now’s her chance to prove it.
Crisis offers German leader one last chance to embrace ‘more Europe.’
www.politico.eu