BRUSSELS (AP) – European Union leaders are no longer meeting around a table with an oval summit to mediate their famous compromises. Instead, each of the 27 watches the other heads of state or government with suspicion via a video screen showing a mosaic of distant capitals.
This is what COVID-19 did.
Lofty hopes the crisis will encourage a new and tougher bloc to face a common challenge has given way to the reality of division: the pandemic has pitted member states against member states, and many capitals against the EU itself, as symbolized through the connected, virtual meetings that the leaders are holding now.
Leaders are fighting over everything from virus passports to pushing tourism to the conditions for receiving pandemic aid. Worse, some are attacking the structures the EU has built to deal with the pandemic. Last month, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced how the purchase of vaccines in the bloc had become a ‘bazaar’, claiming that poorer countries succeed while the rich thrive.
“Internal political cohesion and respect for European values continue to be challenged in various corners of the Union,” the European Policy Center said in a study one year after the pandemic swept China and engulfed Europe.
In some places, there are demands for political accountability.
In the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Andrej Babis on Wednesday fired his health minister, the third to be fired during the pandemic in a country hardest hit. Last week, the government of Slovakia resigned due to a secret agreement to buy the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, and in Italy, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had to resign due to his handling of the economic consequences of the pandemic.
But overall, the political upheaval across the EU has been muted, with half a million people dying in the pandemic. At EU level, there was no serious appeal for the removal of President Ursula von der Leyen, the bloc’s chief executive, despite her acknowledgment that serious mistakes had been made.
It is clear that the EU has not yet come to terms with this – and it is not clear whether it can. The European Policy Center noted that “the health crisis has no immediate end in sight, let alone the inevitable structural economic challenges.”
The EU and its countries have, of course, fallen victim to some events beyond their control, as other countries around the world have done. Good arguments can be made that part of the block’s problems are due to the delivery of the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. But some of the crisis was clearly self-inflicted.
The typical complaint is that there is no unified health structure of the EU to tackle the pandemic and that health is still a national domain. But for years, the bloc has had a common drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency. And since last summer, the EU has decided to merge vaccine purchases and distribute them fairly among the 27 countries, large and small, richer and poorer.
But while some non-EU countries are speeding up with the authorization for emergency use, the EMA has moved more slowly, at least in part because it followed a process that was largely similar to the standard licensing procedure that would be granted for any new vaccine.. The agency’s first green light vaccination comes about three weeks after one was approved in the UK – the first country to approve a rigorously tested COVID-19 shot.
The block never caught up. On Friday, for example, the UK gave 46.85% of its citizens at least one dose, compared to 14.18% in the EU.
The EU has also made the mistake of equating vaccine security too much with shots in the arms – and underestimating the problems with the manufacture and distribution of such a delicate product. While EU negotiators focused on accountability clauses in a contract, other nations thought of logistics and insisted on speed and volume.
And while countries such as the United States have sealed their borders on vaccine exports, the EU has taken the moral foundation and kept exports going – to the extent that almost as many doses during the first quarter of the year blocked the third countries than those delivered to the protesting EU member states.
In addition to making mistakes in vaccinating, the EU will be slow to spend money from its € 750 billion ($ 890 billion) rescue package, which will share debt in unprecedented ways and give grants to poorer members. But fight among leaders over certain clauses and complicated rules made it all but a quick process. What’s worse, the German constitutional court could still torpedo or further delay the entire initiative.
The nature of the crisis may be different from previous, but well-known obstacles have arisen: heavy bureaucracy, unnecessary delays because legal and technical disputes have overshadowed the bigger picture, and bipartisan politicians who put self-interest before the common interest.
The past week has been an example of this. The EMA reiterates its advice to all member states to stand together – this time to use the AstraZeneca jabs for all adults, despite a possible link to extremely rare cases of blood clotting.
Instead, a few hours after the announcement, Belgium went against the recommendation and excluded AstraZeneca for citizens aged 55 and under, while others issued or held similar restrictions.
‘If government leaders do not trust science, trust in vaccination is gone. If we do not trust (the EMA), ANY general EU approach is doomed, ”said leading EU Member of Parliament Guy Verhofstadt, usually the strongest EU support.
It is noteworthy that EU countries have insisted on postponing their vaccinations in December, especially as they wanted to wait for the EMA’s decision. But many repeatedly ignored the EMA advice in the months that followed, placing more restrictions on vaccine use than the agency had asked for.
This extreme hesitation by many countries – in addition to advice that regularly seesaws – has become a feature of the vaccination that went wrong. This exacerbated the supply and confidence that the bloc faced.
With barely half the doses the EU has contracted for the first quarter – 105 million instead of 195 million – the video summit last month left EU countries scrambling over shots and a distribution system that some see as unfair.
Now there are expectations that the EU can turn it around. 360 million shots are hoped for this term – it will keep alive the promise to vaccinate 70% of adults in the 450 million population block by the end of the summer.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron gave millions of hopes when he said that a return to a semblance of normal life might come by mid-May when people ‘can reclaim our art alive through our restaurants and our cafes that we love so much . “
By that time, EU leaders could even once again personally mingle at the summit going through the night.