EU’s Dwindling Summit Attendance Shows Virus-Fight Debacle
EU’s Dwindling Summit Attendance Highlights Virus-Fight Debacle
(Bloomberg) -- European Union leaders inadvertently offered evidence that they have fallen behind the curve in their efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic when their summit talks were disrupted by fears of potential infections.
Even as leaders like Germany’s Angela Merkel and Spain’s Pedro Sanchez are battling for tougher restrictions at home, they traveled to Brussels to meet with the rest of the EU’s leaders face to face.
Talks had barely begun on Thursday when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen rushed out of the meeting to isolate after being informed that a member of her staff had tested positive. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin followed suit on Friday.
Both had previously been in close proximity to Europe’s entire leadership, including Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, at the headquarters of the European Council where they had gathered to discuss the stalemate in Brexit negotiations and foreign policy issues.
Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was a no-show as he was already in quarantine.
Losing Control
“This meeting should have been held as a virtual conference,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters. “It would have been smart not to be meeting physically.”
Further underscoring the tenuous situation in the bloc, Merkel told reporters that an informal gathering of the leaders in Berlin on Nov. 16 would be canceled.
“No one can be sure when we will all be able to meet again together,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said after the meeting on Friday.
The debacle illustrated how European leaders are losing grip on the crisis after a brief summer respite. Governments from France to the Netherlands have imposed measures reminiscent of last spring’s lockdowns amid record spikes in new infections.
A map of the continent published Thursday by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control showed that only a handful of areas on the northern and southern edges of the continent are still deemed safe for travel. And in Brussels, the unofficial capital of the EU, the government is preparing to clamp down on any remnants of social life later on Friday as the number of infections strains the country’s health-care system.
“The question of how we will get through this pandemic will be decisive for the health of a very large number of people,” Merkel said after the summit discussion about the pandemic. “What is also at stake is our economic performance.”
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.