EDITORIAL
European Union: is this a global power?
In the vaccine campaign, Europe is a giant with clay feet. Millions of Europeans look to the other side of the channel and ask: what have we gained from being here? This terrible wound will take years to heal.
UK health minister Matt Hancock
announced on Sunday that the country had vaccinated 873,784 people the day before. And with immoderate national pride, he added: “This gigantic team effort shows the best of Britain”. On this side of the English Channel, no minister could display either a number of that magnitude, nor a declaration of confidence in that tone. On the contrary, the pandemic remains alarming and
people's resistance is wearing thin . At the most dramatic moment in its recent history, the European Union fails its citizens. It had already failed in the debt crisis and failed again in the pandemic crisis.
If there is an idea capable of mobilizing Europeans around the Union, it is the guarantee that in a global world disputed by hegemonic blocs, the sharing of sovereignty is the best way to guarantee security, stability and protection. With Germany or France condemned to the status of middle powers vis-à-vis Russia, China or the United States, or even in the face of the emerging countries, the Union would serve not only to underpin collective influence and power on a global scale. When the
United Kingdom advanced to “Brexit”, this idea was said and repeated until exhaustion: outside the EU, it was said, London would be a small satellite, condemned to gravitate towards the big blocks.
The vaccine disaster is dangerous because it has challenged the idea that the Union makes us stronger and safer. What started well with a centralized purchasing and distribution plan gave way to a resounding failure. In the previous purchase plan, Europe behaved like the little vine always waiting for discounts. In the
dispute with AstraZeneca, Brussels seems to have the same influence and power as Azerbaijan.
In international comparison , it is behind not only the United Kingdom or the United States, but countries like Chile, Serbia or Morocco.
With people's lives at stake and the guarantee of a place on the starting line for recovery, Europe has once again become the usual political dwarf. Ursula von der Leyen was visionary in the concept of the common vaccination, but it was a disaster in the way she performed it. With the battle increasingly lost, it threatens lawsuits, export blocks and a thousand and one expedients to save the face. Too late: in the vaccination campaign,
Europe is a giant with clay feet . Millions of Europeans look to the other side of the channel and ask: what have we gained from being here? This terrible wound will take years to heal.
www.standard.co.uk
www.telegraph.co.uk
