What European union? 17
It seems more than probable that the rickety, corrupt, gynocratic, dictatorial European Union is being finally destroyed by the Chinese Virus.
Its ultimate test came with the pandemic. The country worst affected – even worse perhaps than China itself where the pestilence originated – is the EU member-state, Italy.
In an article published today (March 21, 2020) by Gatestone, titled European Union: The End?, Judith Bergman writes:
Italy appealed [to the EU] for help at the beginning of its coronavirus crisis – and received in return exactly nothing. …
In addition, Germany and France, leading EU member states, even imposed bans or limitations on the export [sic] of facemasks and protective equipment.
The very idea that the countries of Europe, with their different characters, temperaments, languages, histories, traditions, capabilities and cultures, could form a union like the United States of America, was farcical. The attempt to implement it has been a prolonged pretense, a staged sham, a parody doomed to the ugly failure it is now proving to be.
Reality is exposing the make-believe, breaking up the theatrical performance:
When an entire continent is in the midst of a highly contagious virus epidemic, solidarity becomes a more complex issue. Every state inevitably considers whether it can afford to send facemasks and protective equipment that might be needed for its own citizens. In other words, every state considers its own national interest first. In the case of Italy’s appeal for help, EU member states made their own interests their highest priority. This is classic state behavior and would not have caused any outrage prior to the establishment of the European Union.
What the coronavirus crisis reveals is that the member states of the European Union will revert to national interests when extreme circumstances call for it. While such revelations may not spell the immediate end of the European Union, they certainly raise questions about the point of an organization that pledges solidarity as a founding principle, but abandons that principle the moment it is most called for.
And it’s not only the awful reality of a highly infectious disease that is forcing the diverse nations to admit and attend to necessary self interest. There is also the Islamic invasion, now reaching a climax as Turkey threatens to pour a million Muslim immigrants – aka “refugees” – into Europe through the poor EU member-state Greece. Greece found itself standing alone against an incoming human tide. Greek soldiers guarded the border, shot live ammunition into the invading hordes, and even exchanged fire with a Turkish tank or two.
As Judith Bergman says –
Coronavirus, however, is not the only recent issue to put into question the viability of the European Union.
The current crisis on the Greek-Turkish border has shown the EU not only as unhelpful, but an actual liability: The EU left an already overwhelmed Greece to deal with the migrant crisis — manufactured by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for political gain – on its own, despite the apparent rhetorical support by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who called Greece Europe’s “shield”.
President Erdoğan wants Turkey’s admittance to the EU, and billions of Euros in aid. Angela Merkel, still de facto leader of the wealthiest member-state Germany and therefore also of the EU, pays again and again.
Turkey’s migrant blackmail worked surprisingly well and surprisingly fast. …
Erdoğan got what he wanted.
The money, anyway. Five billion euros already given is only a start.
Consequently, on March 18, Erdoğan announced that the migrant crisis that he had orchestrated was officially over: Turkey was closing its borders with Greece and Bulgaria, ostensibly due to the coronavirus. The Telegraph cited reports from Turkish news website Medyascope that around 150 buses had been readied to collect migrants from the border and ferry them back to Istanbul and refugee camps.
Erdoğan can use the same threat as often as he chooses. And it will continue to work for him. Until Angela Merkel goes. Or the EU itself has gone with the infected wind of change.
The EU may not formalize its disbandment for a while yet, but who can continue to believe in its viability now?