Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1231020
14 CORONAVIRUS CRISIS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 05 APRIL 2020 NOW, first of all let me make some things clear. I'm not an economist, but a historian who studied economic history. And that is very different from being an economist. As historians we are trained to look at things from the viewpoint of long stretches of time. While politicians scramble to come up with knee-jerk re- actions which are also acceptable to the public, historians have the privilege to sit back and analyse matters in depth and in this way, I have the privilege to write things which may not necessarily go down well with the public or anyone at all for that matter. Secondly, I'm not here as a prophet of doom. I sincerely hope that in everything I say, I will be proved wrong. History can help us understand what is going on, but it can also help us understand the proba- bilities of the future. I will share with you what I see as a historian and try to pro- vide the probabilities of the future, in the briefest way possible. So, in order to be brief and simple as possible I will say very clearly that things look very ugly for Europe. This is not an economic crisis like any other and it is, without any shadow of a doubt, the big- gest crisis we have experienced so far in our lifetime, and may probably have ad- verse political, economic and social im- pacts that exceed those of even the 1930s Great Depression. Since the 2008 economic crisis, both the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank addressed the econom- ic crisis by injecting more liquidity in- to the financial system in various ways. Banks were saved, financiers and traders made easy money, big companies could take cheap loans and governments could keep on spending. Governments in Eu- rope continued loading up on debt but the man in the street seemed to be miss- ing out on the big financial packages be- ing thrown away so easily to save the fi- nancial system. Young people were faced with new challenges, such as exclusion from the property market with soaring home prices and austerity politics hitting the most vulnerable, such as pensioners and single-parents. When Greece imploded, the EU failed to provide it with a sensible programme of economic support and Greece remains today in economic shambles. Italy, with alarming levels of both private and pub- lic debt, looks like it's heading into a sim- ilar Greek scenario. Then there was the Brexit rebellion. The Euro keeps losing its value as does the geopolitical clout of Europe itself. As of last year, Germa- ny's export drive lost steam as China's economic growth subsided and signs of a looming economic recession were all over the place. At the same time, while all of this was taking place, the far-right in Europe has become mainstream once again. Last, but not least, the immigra- tion crisis is challenging our moral and rational principles. It looks like the 1930s, but hopefully I am wrong – bad politics, bad economics, the rise of the far-right and an increas- ing number of disenfranchised workers. It looks ugly for Europe It looks like the 1930s, but hopefully I am wrong – bad politics, bad economics, the rise of the far-right and an increasing number of disenfranchised workers. This doesn't mean that history repeats itself Historian Mark Camilleri does not want to be a prophet of doom, but he thinks the pandemic's effect on political and social life could unleash impacts far bigger than the 1930s' Great Depression MARK CAMILLERI