Coronavirus crisis: How to win the second half

The EU had a rough start in its fight against the pandemic, but it has time to rally.

 
PARIS — Like an ill-disciplined football team, the EU often goes a few goals down at the start of a crisis only to snatch victory in the second half once it starts to play like a team.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which respects no national frontiers, is the epitome of a common threat to all 27 member countries that cries out for a collective response. Yet the initial impact has been to tear holes in Europe’s free movement of people, goods and services while leaving the hardest-hit countries feeling abandoned and EU institutions looking like bystanders.

National leaders seeking to protect their citizens ordered unilateral border closures and export bans on medical equipment and protective clothing that have upended — at least temporarily — the Schengen area of passport-free travel and the single market. Some countries imposed total lockdowns while others left their citizens relatively free to roam.

“Economically we are one, but politics has remained national,” former Eurogroup Secretary Thomas Wieser noted in an interview with Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad.

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Πηγή: politico.eu