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After the Coronavirus, the Nation-State Will Make a Comeback

(JNS) Fiamma Nirenstein - All the peoples of Europe are now finding their inner strength. Even the most convinced Europeanists have become more Italian, or French, or English, at this time when lives are under threat - and tomorrow, this won't be forgotten. The borderless utopia of the European Union has been called into question. The overcoming of national customs in favor of European ones, the mutual loyalty, the EU notion of solidarity and moralistic claims - nothing is certain anymore. None of it held up when faced with a true challenge. As the coronavirus pandemic spread, EU member states closed their borders one by one. They prohibited the export of goods deemed essential and withheld humanitarian aid. In the end, national interest won out. The current crisis has revitalized the national idea, which draws its strength from one's own customs, traditions, mutual loyalty and natural solidarity, and cast into doubt an international unity that has turned out to be rhetorical, useless, bureaucratic, and more an impediment than anything else. What a pity that the EU failed to understand the aspiration of nations to remain themselves and the strength that comes from being able to do this. The writer, a member of the Italian Parliament who served as vice president of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Chamber of Deputies, is a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
2020-04-06 00:00:00
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