Delays in vaccination, bureaucracy, lack of solidarity between its members: will the Covid-19 be the coup de grace for the European Union? The question unfortunately deserves to be asked, writes Dominique Moïsi. The divorce between the EU and its citizens will continue to deepen if Europe appears unable to provide rapid responses to the challenges posed by the pandemic.
The Covid will certainly be defeated. But before being defeated, it risks having made a collateral victim: the European project. The virus attacks the Union in two ways: by exposing the lack of solidarity between its members on the one hand, and by emphasizing the cumbersome, if not the inadequacy of its procedures, on the other. We can retrospectively think that it would have cost less to pay a little more to have vaccines on time, than to take the health, economic and political risk of finding oneself, even temporarily, “disarmed” in the face of the virus.
In fact, faced with the “slowness of the Union”, Denmark and Austria are turning to Israel to jointly produce vaccines. The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary are ordering large quantities of Russian and Chinese vaccines, even though they are not yet authorized by the Union. And many European countries (including Germany) say they are ready, undoubtedly an image victory for Moscow, to have recourse to the Russian vaccine, Sputnik V.
Blood tax
The European Union was said to be threatened by the virus of populism or that of terrorism, Islamists or the extreme right. It is, in fact, but it is its “slippages” in the face of the health virus, which undoubtedly constitute the first of the threats for the Union. To explain the difficulties encountered by the Union in going further in matters of defense and security, it was said yesterday that the “blood tax” was not delegated. Each nation could only be solely responsible for deciding whether or not to send its soldiers to fight (and potentially die) on external fronts. While the world is at war with Covid-19, this reflection is, all things considered, dangerously moving from security in the classic sense of the word, to health security.
“He travels faster who travels alone“, Kipling wrote. Encouraged by the success of their vaccination policy – which follows a catastrophic start in the face of the pandemic – the British, in the post-Brexit era, have good luck underlining the contrast that exists between their performance and those of the countries of the Union.
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