Robert Tombs on Ashoka Mody's EuroTragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts

A crisis like the present one tests everything—individuals, nations, states, governments, health systems, bureaucracies, businesses. Their solidarity is stretched, their bluffs called, their promises and reassurances tested. The rabbits are caught in the headlights. No frightened rabbit could be more petrified than the European Union, for the Covid-19 crisis has hammered all its weakest points: its democratic deficit, the fragility of its solidarity, and—most dangerous of all—the inherent faults in its financial and economic structure.

The lack of genuine democratic support—which its creators thought they could dispense with—makes it almost impossible to take hard decisions imposing sacrifice. Its solidarity was immediately shown as hollow when member states began acting in their own interests. 

....A European currency was suggested in the 1950s, and the French pushed it for nearly half a century with a persistence one might admire in other circumstances. They finally got their way. Their motive was and is to control Germany, their three-times invader. But beware of what you wish for: the outcome has been Germany controlling them. The fatal episode was the collapse of the USSR and German reunification. President François Mitterrand did a deal with the Germans, and did it ruthlessly: if Germany wanted unification, “you must show that you continue to believe in Europe”, or risk “a terrible backlash”. Chancellor Helmut Kohl readily gave in—he himself saw his mission as unifying both Germany and Europe, and he condemned objections as “nationalist”.

 The whole essay is here.