EU's High Representative Josep Borrell | Photo credit: European Commission Audiovisual
The contrast between the silence of Europe’s streets and squares and the tumultuous, painful reality in many of its hospitals is heartbreaking.
COVID-19 has not only Europe but the entire global community in its grip. It is already clear that the pandemic will reshape our world. But precisely how will depend on the choices that we make today.
In times of crisis, our instinct is to turn inward, to fend for ourselves. This reaction, though understandable, is self-defeating. Going it alone all but ensures that the fight will last longer and that the human and economic costs will be far higher.
Although the enemy has triggered nationalist reflexes, we can defeat it only with cross-border coordination – in Europe and beyond.
Now is the time to show that solidarity is not an empty phrase. Fortunately, that is already being demonstrated in Europe, where France and Austria are sending more than three million masks to Italy, and where Germany is taking in and treating patients from France and Italy.
After a first phase of diverging national decisions, we are now entering a phase of convergence in which the EU is centre stage.
“Although the enemy has triggered nationalist reflexes, we can defeat it only with cross-border coordination - in Europe and beyond”
For its part, the EU is stepping up with decisions to facilitate joint procurement of vital medical equipment, a joint economic stimulus, and coordinated consular efforts to repatriate stranded EU citizens.
One way to think of COVID-19 is that it is accelerating history. Through whatever changes are in store, the EU must remain a unifying factor, by promoting joint efforts with China and the United States to address the pandemic and its consequences.
Only with these three powers pulling in the same direction can the G20 and the United Nations make a real difference.
There are four major priorities for global cooperation. First, we must pool resources to produce new treatments and a vaccine, which should be regarded as a global public good.
Second, we need to limit the economic damage by coordinating fiscal and monetary stimulus measures and protecting the global trade in goods.
Third, we should be planning to re-open borders in a coordinated way whenever health authorities give the green light.
Lastly, we must cooperate to fight disinformation campaigns.
“We need to limit the economic damage by coordinating fiscal and monetary stimulus measures and protecting the global trade in goods”
As the virus spreads globally, we need to pay special attention to its growing impact on fragile countries, where it threatens to exacerbate existing security crises.
In Syria, Yemen, Gaza, and Afghanistan, millions of people have already suffered through years of conflict. Just imagine what would follow if the Coronavirus emerges in the region’s refugee camps, where sanitation and health services are already overstretched, and humanitarian workers already struggle to deliver aid.
In many developing countries, people often have no choice but to go out every day and make a living in the informal economy.
Worse, handwashing and social distancing can be far more difficult when running water is not always available, and where families tend to live in cramped spaces.
This is a fight that will need funding to win. Developing countries depend crucially on three sources of finance: foreign investment, remittances, and tourism. Yet all three are now being hit hard.
Globally, capital flows have fallen by 60 percent as investors flee to safe havens and migrant workers lose jobs and are unable to send money home.
Finally, amid the overwhelming gloom, there is a chance to end long-running conflicts. There have already been some positive signs of cooperation between rivals.
The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, for example, recently sent aid to Iran, which has been hit particularly hard by COVID-19. No one can afford to wage multiple wars at the same time.
The world initially met the crisis in an uncoordinated fashion, with too many countries ignoring the warning signs and going it alone. It is now clear that the only way out of it is together.
NB: A longer version of this article first appeared in Project Syndicate