Brief on COVID-19: National governments, not the EU, sleepwalked into the corona crisis
It should be abundantly clear in light of COVID-19 that global challenges – be it pandemics, climate change or others – can best be solved through international and supranational cooperation and coordination. It obliges national politicians to acknowledge and champion the supranational institutions and frameworks through which such crises can be best managed, such as the EU. It obliges national politicians not to cater to the lowest common denominator. It obliges national politicians to propagate the timeless foundational idea of the EU; we in Europe have a shared fate. We are stronger together.
The EU is only as strong as the Member States want it to be. If politicians and citizens want a stronger, more proactive EU, they must not only give it stronger competencies, but also refrain from scapegoating it, lest warnings such as the ECDC’s go unheeded due to fear of national political backlash.
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