BRUSSELS (AP) – The leaders of the European Union no longer gather around a common oval top table to make their famous compromises. Instead, each of the 27 views the other heads of state or government with suspicion through a video screen showing a mosaic of distant capitals.
This is what COVID-19 has accomplished.
Lofty hopes that the crisis would encourage a new and tighter bloc to face a common challenge, have given way to the reality of divisions: the pandemic has turned the Member State against the Member State, and many capitals against the EU itself, such as symbolized by the disjointed, virtual meetings that the leaders now hold.
Leaders are fighting over everything from virus passports to boosting tourism to the conditions for receiving pandemic aid. Perhaps worse, some are attacking the structures the EU has built to deal with the pandemic. Last month, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz criticized how buying vaccines in the bloc had become a “bazaar”, claiming that poorer countries were leaving while the rich were thriving.
“Internal political cohesion and respect for European values are still being tested in different corners of the Union,” the European Policy Center said in a study a year after the pandemic engulfed China and engulfed Europe.
Political accountability has been called for in some places.
In the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Andrej Babis fired his health minister on Wednesday, the third to be fired during the pandemic in one of Europe’s hardest-hit countries. Last week, the Slovak government resigned after a secret deal to buy Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, and in Italy Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was forced to resign over his response to the economic ramifications of the pandemic.
Overall, however, political unrest across the EU has been muted as half a million people have died in the pandemic. At the EU level, there has been no serious call for the impeachment of the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the CEO of the bloc, despite her admission that serious mistakes have been made.
It is clear that the EU has not yet joined this opportunity – and it is not clear if it can be done. The European Policy Center noted that “the end of the health crisis is not immediately in sight, not to mention the inevitable structural economic challenges.”
The EU and its countries have, of course, been victims of events beyond their control, as have other countries around the world. It can be argued that some of the bloc’s problems are due to delayed deliveries by the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. But part of the crisis was clearly self-inflicted.
The typical complaint is that there is no unified EU health structure to address the pandemic and that health is largely still a national domain. But for years, the block has had a common regulator for medicines, the European Medicines Agency. And since last summer, the EU has decided to bundle vaccine purchases and distribute them fairly among the 27 countries, large and small, richer and poorer.
But while some non-EU countries accelerated their emergency use authorizations, the EMA moved more slowly, at least in part because it followed a process largely similar to the standard licensing procedure that would be granted for any new vaccine.The vaccines agency’s first green light came about three weeks after a vaccine was approved in the UK – the first country to approve a thoroughly tested COVID-19 injection.
The block has never been overtaken. On Friday, for example, the UK had given 46.85% of their citizens at least one dose, compared to 14.18% in the EU.
The EU also made the mistake of over equating securing vaccines with getting shot in the arms – and underestimating the difficulties involved in mass production and distribution of such a delicate product. While EU negotiators focused on liability clauses in a contract, other countries thought about logistics and pushed for speed and volume.
And while countries like the United States sealed their borders to vaccine exports, the EU took moral ground and kept exports going – to the extent that nearly as many doses left the bloc for third countries in the first quarter of the year. like before. delivered to the screaming EU member states.
On top of the missteps in introducing the vaccine, the EU will be slow to spend money from its € 750 billion ($ 890 billion) rescue package, which will share debt in an unprecedented way and provide grants to poorer members . But arguments between leaders about some clauses and complicated rules have made it anything but a fast process. What’s worse is that the German Constitutional Court can still torpedo or further delay the entire initiative.
The nature of the crisis may differ from previous but well-known obstacles: heavy bureaucracy, unnecessary delays as legal and technical disputes overshadowed the bigger picture, and bickering from politicians who put self-interest above the public interest.
Last week was a good example of this. The EMA reiterated its advice to all member states to stand together – this time to continue using the AstraZeneca injections for all adults, despite a possible association with extremely rare cases of blood clotting.
Instead, Belgium challenged that recommendation just hours after the announcement, with the exception of AstraZeneca for citizens aged 55 and under, and others issued or enforced similar restrictions.
“If government leaders don’t trust science, trust in vaccination is gone. If we don’t rely on (the EEA), ANY common EU approach is doomed, ”said leading EU MP Guy Verhofstadt, normally the most loyal of EU supporters.
It is noteworthy that EU countries were pushing to postpone their vaccination trips in December, especially as they wanted to wait for the EMA’s decision. But many have repeatedly ignored the EMA’s advice in recent months and placed more restrictions on the use of vaccines than the agency requested.
This extreme hesitation by many countries – in addition to often seesaw advice – has become a hallmark of a failed roll-out of vaccinations. It has exacerbated the supply and trust issues facing the bloc.
With barely half the doses contracted by the EU for the first quarter – 105 million instead of 195 million – last month’s video summit saw EU countries bickering over shots and a distribution system considered unfair by a few.
Now there are expectations that the EU can turn it around. It hopes for 360 million shots this quarter – that would keep the promise to vaccinate 70% of adults in the block of 450 million residents by the end of the summer.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron gave a glimmer of hope to millions when he said that a return to a semblance of normal life could come perhaps in mid-May, when people “are our art of living, embodied by our restaurants and cafes we love so much.”
By then, EU leaders could even rejoin in person at night-time summits.