Coronavirus outbreak eats into EU unity

BBC News ^ | April 3, 2020 | by Katya Adler

[Oldeconomybuyer]

The coronavirus crisis really brings into question what the EU is all about.

Clearly not a United States of Europe, as eurosceptics have often claimed. Far from it.

Right now, every European government is struggling to protect their populations - their jobs, their health and their economy.

But rich, europhile countries like Germany are not yet digging deeper in to their pockets to help out poorer Italy and Spain. There's little sense of the responsibility West Germany felt towards the East after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Why would there be, you might ask. Germany is a sovereign nation, facing its own pretty big problems.

So, what of the European Commission? Can't it bang heads together; force EU governments to co-operate?

In a word: no.

Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen keeps repeating that "the only effective solution to the crisis in Europe is one based on co-operation, flexibility and, above all, solidarity".

But EU countries take their own decisions.

The EU's open-border Schengen agreement is temporarily in tatters, with travel restrictions in place between Germany and Austria, Belgium and France, France and Italy and so on.

Ursula von der Leyen had hoped to end all these internal border closures by proposing an external travel ban on entering the EU. But faced with Covid-19, EU leaders feel national border security takes precedence.

But what just happened in Hungary arguably breaches the EU's founding values enshrined in a treaty - which include democracy and the rule of law.

The Commission could withhold funds from Hungary. That would be a powerful message.

The EU is more marriage of convenience than union of countries, bound by values and a sense of solidarity, in bad times as well as good.

The coronavirus crisis really brings into question what the EU is all about.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

[Cowboy Bob]

I hope when it's all over, the EU is listed as one of the victims of the coronavirus.

[gattaca]

Many countries will be doing their own form of “Brexit” soon. Another thing to watch for, China is building its military despite the coronavirus.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2020-03-18/coronavirus-could-reshape-global-order

[chuckee]

After this is over, watch for Germany who was the biggest advocate of retaining the EU for trade purposes to start advocating disbanding it as the rest of Europe’s battered and broke economies, especially the hard hit PIGS, put their hand out like Greece for money from Germany.This may lead to the unraveling of the EU

[LRoggy]

“Finland - which has enforced strict social-distancing regulations - is mulling over whether to fully close its border with Sweden for the first time ever because its border areas have a high incidence of Covid-19.

This would damage Sweden’s healthcare system which depends heavily on Finnish medical staff.”

*****

I wonder how many here in the U.S. had any idea that Sweden’s healthcare system wasn’t able to have enough medical providers to support their own needs?

[KarlInOhio]

Sweden appears to have taken the attitude “wr’re all going to catch it, so let’s plow through and build herd immunity now”. I wonder if that would have worked when Sweden was populated by Swedes instead of all their new “guest” who aren’t productive enough to support themselves.