Why the coronavirus crisis is likely to bring Europe together

Solidarity usually suggests physical proximity: goodwill spreading with hugs and cosy chatter. But when you have a crisis with social distancing as an antidote, is that a barrier to comradeship? Far from it. On social media, videos of Italian flash-mobs singing to their neighbours have been shared, as well as petitions to test NHS staff and footage of the ‘Viva los Medicos’ (long live the doctors) mass shout-outs from Spanish windows. Online solidarity overcomes borders, all the more so during a global pandemic. But Europe, which has been described as the ‘epicentre’ of Covid-19, has its own particular flavour of solidarity.

It was the growing outbreak in Italy that really brought attention to coronavirus across the continent. Sadly, disaster usually has to cross the Mediterranean for Europeans to sit up and notice. European nations have a long history of attacking each other’s castles and rolling tanks over each other’s corn-fields, but the continent also has an impressive history of solidarity.