Eurobloat #0120 • April 2020
With a continent in lockdown and hospitals overflowing, the Union found time for what it does best: scolding member states, dreaming up new pots of borrowed money, and quietly editing a report so as not to upset Beijing.
Folly of the Month: Three nations dragged through court for refusing forced migrant quotas
On 2 April the Court of Justice ruled that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic had broken European law by declining to take in their allotted share of asylum seekers under the 2015 relocation scheme. The countries argued that controlling who enters your territory is a matter of public order and internal security. The Court informed them that, in the Union, it is not. So in the middle of a pandemic, with borders slamming shut everywhere, Brussels chose to remind everyone that wanting to limit migration is a punishable offence, while the scheme itself relocated only a fraction of its target and then quietly expired.
1. A hundred billion euros of loans, branded as solidarity
On 2 April the Commission unveiled SURE, a 100 billion euro instrument to subsidise wages across the bloc. It is described as temporary, voluntary and solidary, which in Brussels means a new EU borrowing vehicle backed by member-state guarantees that will be very hard to wind up.
2. Leaders bless a 540 billion euro package and order up a Recovery Fund
On 23 April EU leaders endorsed a 540 billion euro web of safety nets and tasked the Commission with designing a Recovery Fund of unspecified size. Nobody could yet say how big it would be, who would repay it, or which national taxes might be summoned to service it, but the principle of borrowing centrally and spending centrally was now firmly established.
3. A pan-European blueprint for tracking your phone
On 8 April the Commission recommended using mobile data and apps to manage the lifting of lockdowns, followed on 16 April by a common toolbox for contact-tracing applications. Officials swore the schemes would be voluntary, anonymous and short-lived, which is precisely what is always said before a surveillance tool is built across a continent.
4. Member states discover they are hostages of two American firms
Having demanded the right to centralise everyone's contact data, France and Germany found that Apple and Google simply refused to let their phones cooperate. One French official complained the bloc was being completely held hostage by the two companies. The Union that lectures the world on digital sovereignty could not get an app to run without permission from Cupertino.
5. A heartfelt apology, several weeks too late
On 16 April Ursula von der Leyen offered Italy a heartfelt apology for the Union's failure to help when the country first begged for assistance. The apology was warmly received by everyone except the Italians, who had spent the crisis watching national governments, not Brussels, send the masks and the doctors.
6. A report on Chinese disinformation, gently edited for China
A draft EU report dated 21 April accused China of running a global disinformation campaign over the pandemic. By the time it was published on 24 April, after Beijing expressed its concerns, the offending passage had been softened into mush. The Union's brave defence of truth lasted exactly until a large trading partner picked up the telephone.
7. The European Central Bank quietly opens the door to junk
On 22 April the ECB decided that bonds downgraded to junk during the crisis would keep their privileged status as collateral, provided they had passed muster on 7 April. Frankfurt called it grandfathering. Everyone else recognised it as the central bank preparing to lend against debt the market no longer wants.
8. The single market for masks, suspended by the single market's guardian
On 23 April the Commission issued Implementing Regulation 2020/568, requiring export authorisations for protective equipment leaving the bloc. The institution that spent decades fining anyone who interrupted the free flow of goods now ran its own clearing house deciding which masks could cross which border. The first joint procurement for masks had already failed outright.
9. Brussels appoints itself headmaster of national emergencies
Throughout April the Commission and Parliament fretted loudly over Hungary's coronavirus emergency powers, with seventy-five eminent persons signing an open letter on 20 April. Whatever one thinks of Budapest, the spectacle was familiar: the Union as schoolmaster, grading how its members govern themselves and reaching once more for the Article 7 ruler.
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