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European Governments Shrug Off Brussels on Coronavirus

Jamie Dettmer

   Risingcoronavirusinfections aren'tonly testingEurope'snational
   governments to theirlimits butalsostraining European Union solidarity
   with the governments of member states shrugging off pleas for greater
   coordination.

   Instead,national governments have been paying little heed to Brussels
   and are pursuing their own ways of containing the virus and coping with
   the economic fallout, say diplomats and analysts.

   One after another,the governments of the 27 member
   stateshaveignoredBrussels'appeals to keep their borders open to each
   other, ending the bloc's hallowed principle of freedom of movement, and
   they have been ignoring the bloc's rules on state support for their
   domestic industries.

   While EU leaders have talked about the need for "more Europe," national
   leaders have elected to follow the path of "less Europe," say
   observers.

   "Logically, the coronavirus now ravaging parts of Italy and Spain and
   sweeping across the continent should be the ideal opportunity for the
   EU to move away from complacency and national individualism to
   solidarity and European integration. Instead, the pandemic, so far, has
   proventhe opposite," according to Judy Dempsey, an analyst
   attheCarnegie Europeresearch organization.

   Each member state's government has adopted its own way of containing
   the virus, she says. "But this is not a European response. The pandemic
   has not generated a sense of solidarity among the member states or
   forced a reappraisal of the EU's role in setting the agenda, even on
   something as fundamental as safeguarding the health system," she adds.

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