The euro a victim of COVID-19?

The exceptional beauty and ominousness of this photo of the Rialto bridge in Venice — usually overflown with tourists — leads us to question everything that once was… This article adds the euro area as one of these things.

Now that the epidemic has taken over governments and societies in Europe, we need to question whether this crisis will have a long lasting impact on the politics of the continent and on its infrastructures.

Infections in China and Korea have peaked after 16 and 11 days respectively since when the number of positive cases had surpassed 500. In Europe, this is taking longer. Yet, many anticipate — and I tend to agree — that one after the other European countries will declare a peak during the month of April. If this is the case, I believe that the economic and social damage will be manageable with the current institutions. The crisis would certainly not have resulted in a new proud milestone of the European construct, but at least its institutions will survive.

More ominous scenarios lead to a different conclusion, though. And this article runs a worse case scenario, although fortunately not the most likely one.

If the crisis is longer than anticipated, the disruption that the virus would have created to the economies of Europe would be massive. It is clear that in this case, the virus would be a defining moment for the existence of the European Union: many think that the failure to act in a shared way would be a mortal wound for the common institution or, more likely its most exclusive club: the euro area.