Mobilities, neo-nationalism and the lockdown of Europe: will the European Union survive?
Résumé
European regional integration was built on cross-border human mobilities and social transactions. A disease that has spread through expansive human travel and unconstrained human interaction has now been tackled everywhere with immobility and social lockdown within tightly bounded national units. The pandemic is raising echoes of the Dark Continent—that is, Europe’s dismal pre-1945 past analysed so chillingly by historian Mark Mazower—as well as many revived utopian ideas about community, collective responsibility, ecological consciousness, or a new and proactive focus on welfare coverage and public health. In any case the European Union may never be the same after the crisis, if indeed it survives. [First paragraph]