The EU was born out of catastrophe and has advanced through crisis. Today, it confronts threats on many fronts. If it fails to rise to these challenges, it might even shatter. Fortunately, Angela Merkel understands this. The German chancellor remains the trusted leader of the indispensable European country. By agreeing a radical new financial plan with French President Emmanuel Macron, she has transformed the EU’s possibilities. It is another “whatever it takes” moment, this time from Europe’s leading politicians, confirming that Germany and France will only let the EU fail if their electorates discard their elites, as the Americans and British have done. But history has marked the peoples of these two countries too deeply for them to risk similarly infantile politics.
Remember the EU’s history. The Coal and Steel Community and Economic Community were created in reaction to the second world war. The single market was a response to the economic malaise of the 1970s. The currency union was agreed in 1991 in reaction to German unification. The creation of the European Stability Mechanism and the transformation of the European Central Bank into a modern central bank were results of the eurozone financial crisis.
Now comes the economic disaster of Covid-19, with unprecedentedly rapid declines in output expected this year and an uncertain recovery ahead. Yet far more than this is threatening the EU. A nationalist US has turned against the very idea of EU integration. The UK has danced off into the mid-Atlantic. China and Russia have embarked on a “divide and rule” policy. Perhaps most important, the mishandled eurozone financial crisis divided member states and turned Italy, above all, towards Euroscepticism. One poll indicates that in an “Italexit” referendum, 42 per cent of Italians would now vote to leave.