"How the European Union Turned the Coronavirus into a Pandemic" From The Gatestone Institute

How the European Union Turned the Coronavirus into a Pandemic

by Con Coughlin fom The Gatestone Institute 

• The EU's failure to address the coronavirus issue earlier has resulted in the Schengen Agreement, which stipulates that the citizens of any EU state can travel freely throughout the union, becoming null and void.
• Perhaps the most shameful episode concerning inter-EU relations since the start of the coronavirus outbreak was Germany's refusal to allow the export of much-needed face masks and ventilators to Italy after the Italian government made a direct appeal to the rest of the EU for help. Instead of demonstrating the so-called solidarity that is supposed to underpin the EU's founding ethos, the German government issued a ban on the export of the equipment to Italy.
• The EU's handling of the coronavirus has not just been incompetent. It raises serious questions as to whether it is about to become yet another victim of the deadly pandemic.

This week, trucks trying to enter Poland from Germany have been subjected to a tailback dozens of kilometres long, as Polish border guards insisted on checking the temperatures, health and documentation of drivers seeking to enter the country. Pictured: Trucks converging onto the A12 highway stand backed up before Germany's border to Poland on March 18, 2020 near Zernsdorf, Germany. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The emergence of Europe as the new epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic has as much to do with the European Union's inept handling of the crisis as it does with the resilience of the virus itself.

When the world first learned about the existence of coronavirus in China at the start of the year, the EU's response, like much of the rest of the world's, was to adopt a wait and see approach as to how it developed.

The problem for the EU, though, is that it has maintained this lackadaisical approach long after it became clear that the virus was going to develop into a global, rather than a specifically Chinese, issue. More pertinently, the EU's failure to raise its game, after the rapid spread of the virus resulted in much of Europe coming to a standstill, means that the EU is now trying to play catch-up in terms of asserting a leadership role.

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