The EU is facing great challenges. In these uncertain and complex times, Europe should be an example of solidarity and cooperation when it comes to innovative proposals and solutions for today’s problems. Unfortunately, this is not the case and what we have seen since the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis is a clear divide between the 27 individual countries that make up the bloc, particularly over the future direction of the European Union. That future remains under discussion and some points need to be clarified in the weeks and months ahead.
The five main challenges that Europe faces, include:
1] INTEGRATION – Different countries, despite their own national identities, have been able to share in a common space and a collaborative roadmap aimed at practical measure that are linked to coexistence. Institutions like the European Council, Parliament, and Commission do exist, but this crisis has shown that identity integration in Europe is very weak. The EU, as it stands in 2020, has thoroughly and consistently disappointed the nearly 500 million residents that live within its boundaries;
2] INCLUSION – Europe states that it is committed to the inclusion of different racial and ethnic groups. In the 2000s, most in the EU believed in the idea of a positive agenda, and the practical possibility, of inclusion for everyone who lived in the bloc. The corona crisis had laid bare the harsh fact that a “European spirit of solidarity” is, in fact, weak and incapable of dealing with the sort of social and economic disaster that has struck the world. The social breakdown that may occur as a result could have unimaginable consequences for the future on the European Union;
3] INFORMATION – As a single market, Europe’s development has been theoretically linked to the direct sharing of information and knowledge. That should be an effective tool for cooperation between governments and citizens in to prepare for health and economic crisis, the likes of which we are facing now. But, once again, the reality is that the actual results of this idealised cooperation have been nothing short of inadequate.
4] INNOVATION – The COVID-19 crisis, for all of its complexity and uncertainty, demands innovative solutions to help preserve the economic and financial life of the EU. Again, however, the European Union’s bureaucracy and institutional machinery is not helping. At the EU level, everything is painfully slow nd there is a paranoid resistance to new ideas, as well as no clear direction on how to move forward. For many in the bloc, it leaves them asking what exactly happened to the Europe of innovation that most of the bloc’s leaders say they believe in and some have been whole-heartedly defending?
5] INTELLIGENCE – Europe should act intelligently when facing any crisis. Intelligence is about having the capacity to study and share different solutions problem. What we are facing now is different from any other moment in recent memory and certainly the most difficult challenge in the European Union’s history. This critical moment demands a new type of cooperation that is based on the most up-to-date digital and talent-based resources. Residents of the EU cannot believe in a future for the bloc if they do not have the capacity to construct new pillars of collective intelligence that is acceptable to different communities.
As citizens of the European Union, we have a responsibility to give our individual and collective best to help find a resolution to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to do that, however, we need to have clear signs that our voice will be heard and understood by our leaders and Europe’s institutions. This is a crucial time for the EU and the lessons from this crisis must be understood for a new start. Europe can still learn from this crisis, one that will be a lesson of confidence in the future.