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Europe’s Self-Help Moment

Jun 29, 2020 Mark Leonard

The COVID-19 crisis has created an opening for stronger collective European action. But policymakers must understand that the demands of voters across the continent for greater cooperation do not reflect an appetite for institution-building, but rather a deeper anxiety about losing control in a perilous world.

BERLIN – When COVID-19 struck Europe and forced millions of people into internal exile, many were overcome by a deep sense of loneliness. This reflected not only a craving to be reunited with friends and family, but also a broader feeling that their countries had been helpless and abandoned in the face of the global pandemic. This sense of rejection is profoundly affecting the individual psyches and worldviews of Europe’s citizens.

That is the main finding of a recent European Council on Foreign Relations poll of 11,000 people across nine European countries – Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden – that together represent two-thirds of the EU’s population. Paradoxically, the ECFR poll shows that the absence of European Union help for member states during the first phase of the crisis has led to an overwhelming demand for concerted EU action – both to help countries recover from the crisis and to equip them to survive in the world the pandemic is creating.

The ECFR’s survey reveals that Europeans have felt completely let down during the crisis by EU institutions, multilateral organizations, and Europe’s closest partners. Some 63% of respondents in Italy and 61% in France said that the EU did not rise to the challenge posed by the pandemic.

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j. von Hettlingen Jul 5, 2020

Mark Leonard says Covid-19 had dealt a major blow to the millions of people across Europe, with many grappling with a “deep sense of loneliness” during stringent lockdowns, and huge losses as their countries’ economic activities had ground to a halt. Missing friends and family, many Europeans felt “their countries had been helpless and abandoned in the face of the global pandemic. This sense of rejection is profoundly affecting the individual psyches and worldviews of Europe’s citizens.”
The author says the crisis has extracted a high toll when it comes to how people feel about their wellbeing and their relationships with the EU. Many “felt completely let down during the crisis by EU institutions, multilateral organizations, and Europe’s closest partners,” especially in France and Italy. Despite a lack of response from Brussels at the beginning of the pandemic, there has been an “overwhelming demand for concerted EU action – both to help countries recover from the crisis and to equip them to survive in the world the pandemic is creating.”
As a result of fluid developments on the ground, “national governments and Brussels-based EU institutions realize that the COVID-19 crisis has created an opening for stronger collective European action. But policymakers must understand that the demands of voters across the continent for greater cooperation do not reflect an appetite for institution-building, but rather a deeper anxiety about losing control in a perilous world.”
Given Trump’s disruptive and transactional approach in foreign policy, as well as his disastrous failure to manage the national health crisis, he can not be trusted. As the US has the world’s highest number of confirmed cases and Covid-19 related deaths, Europeans have given up on Washington as a “key ally” for their countries. They ask themselves whether they still can rely on the world’s most powerful country to protect the West.
According to the author, European politics in the past “often seemed to be defined by opposing camps of nationalists and globalists. But….COVID-19 crisis has scrambled the distinction between the two. Many nationalists have come to realize that a nation-state cannot rescue itself by standing alone, while globalists increasingly recognize that there will never be a perfect international order” while Trump, Putin, and Xi Jinping remain in power.
Paradoxically the nationalists are – together with the globalists – “exploring the possibility of building a rules-based Kantian utopia in Europe. Because neither nationalist retrenchment nor global cooperation will help to avert the next crisis, a new space for finding European solutions is opening up.” One hopes for a more “unified” EU response to global threats and challenges , like “increased controls over the bloc’s external borders, and…pushing firms to produce more medical supplies” within the EU, even at higher costs, while supporting more action on climate change etc.
The author says people across Europe realise that if a Sino-American trade and technology war posed a threat to globalisation, “then greater European unity – including in the form of the EU’s proposed recovery plan – offers the best hope of safeguarding their economies and values.”
The EU can still inspire the rest of the world by taking on the global tech giants, like launching a “digital-services” tax; or overseeing a “greener” economy, by setting a “price for carbon” and using border adjustment taxes to persuade others to meet its standards or absorb the costs.”
The Franco-German recovery plan presented in May, “could mark the start of a crucial new chapter of the European story. But building a more powerful and unified Europe" will require the bloc’s leaders to peddle their "arguments in a way that connects with voters,” rather than repelling them.
Covid-19 has changed Europe – it is now “a community of necessity rather than choice. And voters increasingly see the EU as a tool to strengthen, rather than weaken, national sovereignty.”
The problem is that we must be constantly vigilantly and can not afford to be overly optimistic about keeping a highly contagious virus like Covid-19 at bay, as long as reliable vaccines and treatments are still not yet widely available. For this reason it will take years for Europe to regain a modicum of its former strength, of course the sooner the better.
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Henk Crop Jun 29, 2020

" the demands of voters across the continent for greater cooperation do not reflect an appetite for institutionbuilding, but … anxiety about losing control".
The EU has not played any role in fighting the COVID -19 pandemic. You could wonder if there was an opening for much collective EU action.
The casualties occcured in the cities and villages all over the EU and had to be aided there.
Anyway the citizen turned to their National governments.
This is a lesson for the Brussel policymakers. Stay out if you have nothing to add to solving a problem.
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Prashant Kotak Jun 29, 2020

"...the EU’s digital agenda and plans for a digital-services tax may yet force global tech giants to abide by European rules..."

It may, but I wouldn't hold my breath. But the more interesting question that arises is this: suppose it doesn't, what then? The EU is not making tax regulations and taxation frameworks from a position of strength. The only weapon in Europe's armoury is that they are wealthy buyers of tech, and the tech giants covet this market. But that cannot possibly extend to being able to dictate to transnational giants how they should operate. No one in the EU owns any of the tech the global tech giants depend on. Flipping that, *all* of EU national and corporate life is *totally* dependent on US, and to a lesser extent far-eastern created tech. To illustrate this, imagine the EU regulators require, say Google, to open their tech so the EU can verify compliance. Tech in the cloud doesn't know or care about national boundaries. So to have any meaning, such a request would have to be transnational. If no accommodation can be reached (highly possible I would say), it is easy to see, Google might be forced out of the EU jurisdiction altogether. At which point what do the thousands of EU businesses, who have to date invested billions into Google services in the cloud, do? Which European cloud tech giant should they turn to? Or would you suggest they go with Baidu?
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