The European « esprit de corps » against Covid-19: between solidarity deficit and communication deficit

Clarifying the stakes of the debate on the EU raised by the fight against the coronavirus invites us to question once again the limits of the “European esprit de corps” in the face of crises, which stem from a lack of instinctive solidarity as much as a lack of communication. The coronavirus crisis is indeed a major political test for the EU, of greater magnitude than the eurozone crisis and the refugee crisis, given the number of deaths it is to cause on our continent. If this new “stress test” leads to inevitable mistakes and tensions, their negative impact could be reduced if this crisis were to give rise to better calibrated political communication.

1. Building European solidarity: from moral hazard to political one?

It would be useful to confront such a complex crisis with a few simple ideas, including in terms of solidarity: the “European spirit” does not blow spontaneously in the EU countries, neither at the level of its national leaders nor at the level of its peoples; the impulses of solidarity are expressed more spontaneously in a national framework than at Community level; a “mechanical solidarity”, emotional and instinctive, unites compatriots of the same country (even if regional tensions sometimes weaken it) and leads to a rapid mobilisation of states, equipped with the necessary competences and tools to implement it.

This basic political reality does not exclude the existence of an “organic solidarity” between fellow EU citizens: less automatic, this solidarity stems from the economic and human interdependence established between member states, their diplomatic and political commitments, and is part of the “de facto solidarity” evoked by the Schuman Declaration. European solidarity does exist indeed, it has been patiently built up over the decades, including in response to successive crises, and it has already manifested itself in the face of the coronavirus. It is therefore possible, and even likely, that the current crisis will give rise to greater solidarity among Europeans, on the express condition that the necessary compromises are made on clear and consensual bases.

It is “positive” that, unlike the euro area crisis and the refugee crisis, the coronavirus crisis affects all EU countries (it is not “asymmetric”) and that its origin cannot be attributed to the failure of any country. This presumed absence of “moral hazard” should not obscure the existence of political difficulties, which may become all the greater if the solidarity mechanisms proposed to deal with the coronavirus are accompanied by moralising postures. Indeed, it is better to use functional arguments of the “we are all in the same boat” type to encourage European solidarity than to send this or that country back to its presumed “selfishness”.

While it is not totally excluded that calling a country such as Germany into question may contribute to its awareness that more solidarity is needed, it is undoubtedly counterproductive to put that country and a few others (in particular the Netherlands) in the dock. On the one hand, because it’s unfair : they have shown substantial financial solidarity for decades within the EU budget and have done the same in the face of the eurozone crisis. On the other hand, because these countries also face the anxiety of dealing with the epidemic, but also the stress of having to let their public spending and deficits slip (which does not pose any psychological or political problems for many of their neighbours…). Promoting more European solidarity implies a minimum of empathy towards all EU countries: if the crisis requires urgent health interventions, it also requires giving a little “time to time” to allow for a coherent European consensus on economic and financial matters – without suggesting that the way out of the crisis is through a single welfare tool such as the “coronabonds”.

Finally, let us not forget that many EU governments are faced with Euroscepticisms fuelled by the eurozone crisis and then the refugee crisis. While some of these Euroscepticisms have thrived on the rejection of a Europe seen as too ungenerous and too “austere”, others have denounced the financial and then humanitarian solidarity efforts deployed on the European continent in the face of these two crises. These “twinned” euroscepticisms echoed a deficit of solidarity, but also a deficit of trust between the peoples of the EU, which did not disappear as if by magic. They too are part of the political realities and uncertainties that need to be taken into account in order to forge a European democratic compromise that is both effective and legitimate in the face of the coronavirus.

2. European solidarity to be better embodied at Community and national levels

The debate on European solidarity would be less deleterious if EU and national decision-makers made an effort to better embody it in the eyes of EU citizens – a challenge that is always renewed, and even more acute in times of crisis, when minds are inflammable .

The initial communication deficit of the European institutions can come from the burdens they face in the laborious process of making internal and then inter-institutional compromises, as well as on the difficulty of gathering the required information from the Member States. These burdens do not excuse the late and incomplete dissemination of data enabling communication on the implementation of European solidarity in the face of the coronavirus!

In the information war waged by China, Russia and the Europhobes, it is regrettable that the European and national authorities were not more reactive in sharing all the information demonstrating that Europeans were strongly helping each other – even if these gaps could be filled by civil society actors and then by the European Commission. It took an infinite amount of time to finally assert that the EU countries had been able to show solidarity in proportion to their respective levels of exposure to the epidemic and their means available at the time “t”. It also took an infinite amount of time to point out that it was for the same reason that they were first able to help China, which has recently been able to reciprocate (albeit more or less effectively).

The European institutions have also made a number of regrettable mistakes since the beginning of the crisis. The President of the ECB herself agreed that she had missed her communication of 12 March, by not planning a sufficiently broad response and by stating that interest rate divergences between eurozone countries were not her priority, which caused a crash on the markets. Although she was not completely wrong in substance, it is inappropriate that Ursula Von Der Leyen indicated that “eurobonds” were primarily a “slogan” or a “concept”, even if her words had been better translated. Similarly, it is regrettable that the President of the Commission and those of the European Council and the European Parliament did not give more direct expression to their solidarity with the countries on the front line in the face of the coronavirus: their recent collective move to Greece in the face of the influx of asylum seekers should, for example, have inspired a similar trip to Northern Italy, which would have symbolically embodied European solidarity in the face of a much larger crisis – it is probably not too late…

This need to better embody European solidarity is all the more essential as communication on Europe is as usual dominated and shaped by national leaders. In addition to their participation in the European Council’s videoconferences, whose failures are more often noted than their progress, the heads of state and government have made use of the whole and classic range of communication channels on Europe in the face of the coronavirus. Sometimes omitting to mention the EU’s interventions, even when they are in solidarity: perhaps in order not to tension anxious and introverted public opinion; more certainly to give greater value to Chinese or Russian interventions, such as the Italian and Eurosceptic Foreign Affairs Minister. National leaders have also sometimes pointed out the EU’s responsibilities in the face of the crisis, using it as a classic and convenient scapegoat to mask their own failings. They have sometimes regretted the “lack of Europe” and the EU’s lack of solidarity, even though they claim to want to deepen European construction while inadvertently swelling the ranks of its detractors…

Very few have found the right tone and tempo to recognise the merits and limits of European solidarity and to call for its deepening in a rapid and consensual manner – many have preferred the success of domestic esteem to the greater effectiveness of Community action.

3. The ambivalent effect of hyperbolic and morbid communications on “Europe”.

In this context, Jacques Delors usefully exercised his great moral authority to warn the European Heads of State and Government of the disastrous consequences of the divisions they are displaying. He was right to target the return of the anti-European “microbe” – his intervention has already led to the production of useful “antibodies”, including in countries presumed to be resistant to greater European solidarity.

On a more political and operational level, however, it has to be said that hyperbolic and morbid communications about Europe have more than ambivalent effects. In the fight against a virus whose only proven victims will be thousands of Europeans, it would be useful not to invoke the “death of the EU” too systematically, adding to an ambient stress that can already prove paralysing.

Defying morbid prophecies would be all the more appropriate since they have already been uttered in vain at the time of the eurozone and refugee crises – in which the EU survived – and are therefore now proving less credible and propulsive. It would be better to make greater use of the EU’s capacity for resistance and resilience in order to convince all its members to work to safeguard it, including by strengthening the tools that reflect its solidarity.

Morbid prophecies can even prove repulsive when they are perceived as narrative tools aimed at imposing long-supported orientations and decisions – such as the mutualisation of debts: opportunistic grandiloquence is all the less convincing if it is seen as the result of a strategy aimed at profiting from the coronavirus crisis…

In the end, could these morbid prophecies not prove to be self-fulfilling? For what is the point of making political efforts to save the EU if it is destined to disappear or to help this or that Member State financially, including through common debts, if it is to be governed by Eurosceptic or even Europhobic forces?

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The coronavirus will, alas, kill many European citizens – and an even greater number of people on our planet. It is not written that it will kill the EU, which could once again show its resilience and assert itself more strongly. All the more reason for its political leaders to work together to formulate better responses, at both national and EU level, on the basis of a more informed and constructive public debate – before we learn all the lessons of this ordeal to prepare well for the post-crisis period.