You might have thought that Europe’s leaders would be wary of handing Brussels greater powers, given the various mishaps of the EU’s vaccine procurement and roll out scheme since January. But for German Chancellor Angela Merkel the sorry episode has served less a chastening warning about the dangers of Euro integration than a justification for a more centralised state.
Speaking earlier this week in a video conversation with European People’s party group leader Manfred Weber, Merkel aligned herself with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen whose handling of the pandemic has been widely criticised. The outgoing chancellor said ‘it is good’ that VdL wants more power to coordinate and regulate health issues, saying ‘I believe that Europe needs more competencies in the area of health.’ She agreed with Weber that the Conference on the Future of Europe should begin work on looking for a new basis in law for such power, adding ‘Probably you also have to change the Treaties for this’ and that ‘Ideally we would have always taken a European approach when it comes to lockdowns.’
The spectre of a continental wide lockdown spanning Helsinki to Heraklion would presumably go down rather better in Cyprus, where cases are 954 per million people, than in Finland, where it is 47 per million. Not
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