Macron’s Covid-19 Playbook Comes Back for War

Macron’s Covid-19 Playbook Comes Back for War

International and Arab News

So much for the “Roaring Twenties” after Covid-19. The mood feels more like the Four Horsemen: As Pestilence subsides, War has returned to Europe, destroying lives, homes, economies and the optimism greeting the lifting of pandemic restrictions.

Overnight, a Europe reshaped by Covid — with a bigger, more interventionist, more protective state — is adapting to wartime. States of emergency are being extended, defense councils summoned, and socially distanced European Union video calls convened to respond to conflict.

And just as Covid forced the 27-member bloc to pull together by overcoming internal divides over political and fiscal integration, the shock of Russia’s attack on Ukraine has created pressure to narrow lingering defense and energy divides.

One test is whether the EU can revive the pandemic-era “Hamiltonian” spirit that led it to launch a first-of-its-kind 750 billion-euro ($814.7 billion) recovery fund backed by joint borrowing. France’s Emmanuel Macron is already drumming up support for a new fund to share the economic burden of the current crisis, Le Monde reports. A proposal may be presented after the EU’s leaders hold an emergency summit in Versailles, France, later this week, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

There are reasons to think something like this will