When news about the novel Covid-19 disease spread across the world, the first impulse of many countries was to close their borders to outsiders. El Salvador took the lead with an entry restriction for non-residents on March 11, and European countries followed shortly thereafter. Today, more than two months into the crisis, borders remain largely closed and conversations about re-opening them are mostly diffident. 

A similar phenomenon was observable during the 2015 refugee ‘crisis’: in order to secure their population from an external threat, European leaders temporarily abrogated the 1995 Schengen Agreement, which ensures free travel across Europe. The nationalist impulse that accompanied both developments reveals a profound European paradox: due to the Principle of Subsidiarity, Europe is not integrated enough to handle a pan-European crisis; and because the European institutions fail to handle crises in cooperation, its citizens and elites may not see a value in further ceding sovereignty to the multilateral level.

In other words: today’s lack of integration is the reason why integration won’t proceed tomorrow. The Covid-19 pandemic has pushed the EU to a crossroads, and it is unlikely that member states will opt for greater cooperation going forwards. EU member states have always been reluctant to cede sovereignty to European institutions. The 1993 Treaty of Maastricht established the Principle of Subsidiarity which holds that problems should always be solved by the smallest-possible political entity first, with the next-higher level coming in only when necessary. 

This principle aims to ensure sensitivity for regional specificities of states as diverse as Spain and Romania. But there is a considerable drawback: by endowing the supra-national level of European institutions with a narrow set of responsibilities and leaving all other issues to member states, the principle of subsidiarity implicitly strengthens the nation state rather than European policy coordination, and discourages European institutions from pro-actively leading the way forward. 

The implicit state-centrism of the Treaty of Maastricht was emblematized in both the 2015 refugee ‘crisis’ and at the beginning of the current Covid-19 pandemic, when the cluelessness of national policy makers was translated into border controls and closures before anything else. Instead of active policy-coordination by relevant European institutions, each member state resorted to the guidance of their domestic equivalents. The result was a patchwork of different regulations, approaches, and border regimes that tore not only countries, but communities and families apart and was ultimately more costly than a coordinated approach would have been.  

The ongoing reluctance of EU member states to cede sovereignty to the supranational level has resulted in a situation in which the supranational level lacks not only the competence, but first and foremost the resources to enable pan-European coordination. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), for instance, employs a mere 300 staff, which is only a quarter of the people working for the German equivalent, the Robert-Koch-Institut. It is therefore no surprise that the European Union was painfully absent during the first weeks of the pandemic.

Now, the EU is struggling to coordinate a response to the crisis. When the European Commission attempted to present a coherent European strategy to exit Corona lockdowns, EU member states backed up and preferred national policies instead. Suggestions on how to ease the economic impact of the health crisis came from member states first, and when France and Germany suggested a €500 billion response fund, the Commission’s mid-April initiative comprising less than half the amount had already been largely forgotten. Once again, the European Union is reduced to a discussion forum for its member states, with little scope (and capacity) for its own initiative. 

This, however, will make it extremely difficult to sell the idea of a political union, or any further steps towards integration, to Europeans: before the crisis, almost two-thirds of EU citizens already considered European institutions to be out of touch. The EU’s failure to offer pathways through the crisis will only deepen this trend. Italy is a case in point, where the lack of collective action and solidarity among European states in the crisis is being instrumentalized by populist leaders to whip-up support for anti-European policies. With economists predicting that Covid-19 will fuel an economic crisis, anti-European populism is likely to grow.

The absence of a pan-Europe strategy during the pandemic will surely leave an imprint upon the attitudes of its citizens: the nationalist impulse to close borders undermines the notion of a shared European identity. The risk of being seperated from family and loved ones for weeks due to closed borders may force several self-proclaimed European citizens to rethink their relationship to their own nationality, and whether or not the European way of life will be feasible in the future.

For those who still believe in European integration the current crisis should come as a wake-up call: covid-19 has made it clear that European integration is not a given, but instead a value that must be actively sought and defended. The experience of closed borders may bring the importance of Europe and European solidarity back into the consciousness of its citizens – and ultimately put Europe back on the political agenda. 

Whether the protest of a few will be enough to tackle the Integration Paradox remains to be seen in the upcoming weeks. Covid-19 puts the European Union at a crossroads. Less integration and European solidarity is certainly cheaper and easier in the short run. In the long run, however, it is unlikely that the European Union would survive yet another crisis without growing closer together.