Internal battles test European unity

While 2020 has been a grueling year for policymakers in every part of the world, beleaguered European Union officials in Brussels face the added challenges which come with maintaining a united front among 27 member states in the face of multiple external challenges. Indeed, the European neighborhood is entering an era of uncertainty, with the conflict between Greece and Turkey heating up and Belarus, situated on the EU’s doorstep, looking at a revolution in the making against long-time strongman Alexander Lukashenko.

That is not to say the bloc’s external relations are the only points of contention testing its cohesion. Internally as well, European leaders are trying to simultaneously navigate a number of pressing challenges against the backdrop of a raging pandemic. While each presents its own dangers for the EU’s internal unity, all require resolution in order to create a stronger, more stable Union – an objective which is becoming ever more imperative in the face of a hotly divisive election in the United States and fears over China’s growing geopolitical influence.

1) To sanction or not – and if yes, how?

Even before German doctors confirmed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had been poisoned by the infamous nerve agent Novichok, EU member states were divided on how to respond to the attack on Navalny – despite universally condemning the attack on Vladimir Putin’s foremost critic.

While the poisoning is a clear show of the Kremlin’s contempt for international law, Germany in particular is under pressure to draw a clear line in the sand. Berlin is holding the rotating presidency of the EU, and Chancellor Angela Merkel finds herself in an unenviable position because of her good personal relations with Putin and because of the nearly-completed but highly controversial Russo-German Nord Stream 2 pipeline project.

Halting Nord Stream 2 is a key demand for those who want to punish Russia’s flagrant international law violations. Yet nixing the pipeline would entail major economic losses and set off a legal firestorm – making Berlin’s indication that it might still change its stance on the project the more surprising. Even if the move is ultimately a bluff, it is a measure supported by several German political figures, including foreign minister Heiko Maas, and other EU member states.

Broad political sanctions against Moscow, meanwhile, are likely to meet with opposition from traditionally pro-Russian EU countries like Italy and Hungary. While such blanket measures would be legally easier to implement than “limited” sanctions against select members of Putin’s regime, the EU won’t move on the issue until its call for an independent international investigation is answered.

2) Coal vs the climate

The European Green Deal, Brussels’ flagship initiative for a decarbonized and sustainable European economy, was hailed last year as a great step forward for the climate with its vision of a climate-neutral EU by 2050. Unfortunately, those prognostications are failing to mask the fact many EU governments still refuse to embrace the energy transition in earnest.

Poland is a case in point. The country’s reliance on coal is notorious, and the ruling PiS party has for years fought hard against both stricter CO2-emission regulations and an eventual coal phase-out. Instead, the government is planning to open several new coal mines in the hopes that coal will cover 50 percent of the country’s energy demand by 2050. That would be a 30 percent decline compared to now, but obviously clashes with the Green Deal.

Even Germany, the EU’s ostensibly climate-conscious Wunderkind, is undermining the bloc’s climate goals. Although Berlin has pledged to shutter all coal plants by 2038, it opened a new one in May and subsidizes the fossil fuel sector with a whopping €37 billion per year, outpacing Italy (€18 billion) and France (€17.5 billion).

Unless the bloc implements feasible national action plans to curb emissions, the European Green Deal may collapse before it even gets off the ground. The inaction makes Europe’s recent threat to quit the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) if efforts to make it more climate-friendly are failing, sound hollow.

3) Nutri-Score and Nutrinform battle for FOP label supremacy

A byproduct of the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy (F2F), the debate over competing front of pack (FOP) nutrition labels being considered for use across Europe is rapidly shaping up to be a diplomatic duel between France and Italy. Whereas France is promoting its Nutri-Score system, gaining support in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany, Italy has put forward a competing Nutrinform system that is gaining traction across southern Europe.

Unhappy with Nutri-Score’s simplistic traffic light system and what Italian stakeholders argue is a bias against the Mediterranean diet, Italy’s alternative system shuns labelling foods as either “good” or “bad.” Instead, Nutrinform considers the nutritional value of foods relative to the EU’s recommended daily macronutrient intake using a battery graphic, breaking with the Nutri-Score color scheme that saddles many traditional food products with poor ratings.

In the weeks since it gained the green light from the European Commission to introduce Nutrinform on a voluntary basis, Italy has received preliminary support from other southern European governments, including Greece and Romania. A recent study by researchers from the University of Bath is adding fuel to the debate, finding traffic light labelling on its own does not entice people to make healthier shopping choices.

As momentum behind Nutrinform continues to grow, the European Commission could have an exceedingly difficult time mandating the use of one system for the whole of Europe – especially as both France and Italy build coalitions across the bloc in support of their candidates.

4) Five years later, no resolution for the migrant crisis

Five years after “Wir schaffen das,” Angela Merkel’s mantra on the refugee crisis is now infamous. Distributing the burden of hosting people displaced by conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, and other parts of the Middle East and Africa continues to drive EU countries apart, with the vast majority of asylum seekers concentrated in just a few countries: Germany, Italy and Greece.

The work of integrating close to two million migrants, meanwhile, is pushing Germany to the “brink of chaos,” while the EU appears no closer to reforming the bloc’s asylum system than it did in the summer of 2015. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has only injected additional anxiety into an already tense situation, with many arrivals struggling to start their lives anew.

Coming on top of these existing pressure points, the coronavirus is only the most recent of the multiple challenges testing European solidarity from within, even as the prospect of a second wave throws the future of the bloc as a whole into question.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes