Most media pundits’ response to the outcome of last month’s European Union summit on the socioeconomic effects of the pandemic was somewhere between the positive and the exuberant. It is true that the European Commission’s massive borrowing (€750 billion for the EU Recovery Program) has boosted the EU’s supranational-level strength. But the bottom line is that the pandemic is a catalyst for deepening the general crisis of the EU, which will end up in an even worse position than before.

When it comes to money, the European Union was always in shreds. But this time around, the dispute took place in an extremely exceptional situation: indeed, an existential crisis for the union. German chancellor Angela Merkel understood as much. While back in April she had rejected a proposal by Southern member states and France for “coronabonds”  — EU-wide borrowing to ease the fallout of the crisis — the mounting economic dramas made her accept at least a “light” version of this approach.

Too many interests of German capitalism and its government would have been at stake if the conflict between North and South had been allowed to escalate any further. Yet the summit did not come out with a message of “Joint liability for debts” among the member states. Rather, the EU’s Recovery Program (Next Generation EU, in EU speak) is just an exceptional firefighting effort designed to contain the crisis for the next three years.