Insight
Trouble for the EU is brewing in coronavirus-hit by Luigi Scazzieri 2 April 2020
The COVID-19 crisis facing Italy may be new and unprecedented, but for many Italians the European Union’s reaction has been no surprise. After the migration and eurozone crises, the EU’s initially poor response has reinforced concerns that the bloc is unwilling to help when Italy is most in need. The EU will need to work hard to limit a surge of Euroscepticism in Italy. Italy is the European country that has been hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with over 12,000 deaths at the time of writing. After over three weeks of full ‘lockdown’ measures, there are signs that the rate of spread of coronavirus is slowing, but restrictions will need to remain for many weeks, if not months, strangling the economy. European leaders must overcome their divisions and take further measures to minimise the political and economic fallout of the crisis, or Italy could easily disrupt the functioning of the Union. Over the past decade, Italy has gone from being one of the most enthusiastic supporters of greater European integration to one of the most eurosceptic member-states. Many Italians felt that Italy did not receive much European solidarity during the eurozone crisis, and that the Union served as an enforcer of damaging austerity policies. The damage to Italians’ view of the EU was then compounded by the bloc’s response to the migration crisis. Italy took in 650,000 migrants between 2014 and 2018, and efforts to distribute these among other EU countries were largely symbolic, although some other member-states – Germany in particular – also took in large numbers of migrants. According to a European Parliament poll in late 2019, only 37 per cent of Italians saw membership of the EU as “a good thing”, and 17 per cent said it was “a bad thing” – the second-largest negative reading in the bloc after the UK, which has since exited. This shift in public sentiment has been reflected in a rise of nationalism and euroscepticism, with Matteo Salvini’s right-wing anti-immigration League and the even more extreme right-wing Brothers of Italy party going from strength to strength. The way other member-states initially responded to Italy’s coronavirus plight has shaped the narrative of the crisis. In late February, Italy requested assistance from other member-states, calling on the European Commission to activate the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism. But, when the Commission did so, not one member-state offered assistance. Instead, several, including France and Germany, banned the export CER INSIGHT: Trouble for the EU is brewing in coronavirus-hit 2 April 2020
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