FORTUNE | Coronavirus is making clear there is no solidarity in the EU
« The European Union is in trouble. From the start, its countries haven’t been on equal footing. But COVID-19 has shone a stark light on the dissimilarities between its national economies. The crisis has also laid bare that EU members have significantly different views on what obligations they have to one another.
Unfortunately, this chain of events is already unfolding. The financial markets have delivered their verdict: The EU is likely to become another COVID-19 casualty. The markets have also chosen sides: While the coronavirus does not favor Germans over Italians or Spaniards, investors clearly do. This is not the first time investors have bet against southern countries. During the European sovereign debt crisis over the last decade, fortune has favored the more fortunate. Greece, in particular, was let down by its more affluent EU counterparts, an event from which it has yet to recover.
If the EU cannot agree on solidarity soon, the union will be torn apart, and the poorer of its nations will find themselves abandoned in a rising sea of debt. We hope European leaders see these signs as a signal to come together and agree on a new arrangement of mutual aid.», wrote Patrick Augustin, assistant professor of finance at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University and co-author of this article.