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NEWS 1.4.2021 Kevin-James Fenech Kevin is the founder and owner of JOB Search - jobsearch.mt and FENCI Consulting fenci.eu. He is a management consultant and business advisor by profession, focusing on strategy, human resources and recruitment. He has a passion for anything related to business and has written about the topic for over 10 years in most major newspapers or journals W ith the UK looking smug aer its recent EU divorce, the EU's embarrassing rumpus with As- trazenca and the vaccine supply fiasco, the EU looks rudderless and a complete shambles. Sadly, I feel that the pandem- ic has gotten the worse out of the European Union. I mean export bans, a botched cen- tral EU procurement system, vaccine supply shortages, sus- pension of AstraZeneca but reversal of such decision with- in 3 days, EU national leaders' publicly criticising Ursula von der Leyen, attacks on Malta for allegedly having more vaccines than it should and the litany of embarrassing failures goes on and on, including a 3rd Lock- down. In the normal course of af- fairs, it was easy to criticise the EU. Overly bureaucratic, squandering of EU funds and politically weak on the interna- tional fora but in times of a cri- sis, one would have expected the EU to shine; to show every- one how important the Union actually is (we are stronger to- gether than apart). Sadly, it has to date failed miserably. e brutal Hobbesian truth is that European ideals and as- pirations are not set in stone. EU governments have shown us throughout this pandemic that selfish national interests comes first and the bureau- crats in Brussels are ineffective and lack real decision making powers. I mean right now who actually runs the EU? Who takes the big decisions? To add insult to injury, the UK's exist from the Union co- incided with a successful vac- cine roll out which sees Great Britain coming out of the COVID nightmare first. e UK has shown the world that ultimately it was right to lose faith in the EU federalist pro- ject and that it was better off taking control of its own des- tiny. It is a real shame since in the- ory, the concept of a European Union is plausible to say the least, especially for a country like Malta but the the more the EU makes a mess of this pandemic, the more Europe- ans pontificate Malta about democracy and rule of law and the more their true intentions become known especially re- garding tax harmonisation, the hard real truth starts to emerge which makes one wonder if Switzerland, Iceland, Liech- tenstein and Norway (none of them EU members) have a better deal than full-member Malta? Whilst the fundamental problems of the EU are based on long term issues, I wonder if the COVID19 pandemic is the trigger cause that will force a major overhaul of member- ship rights, obligations and membership itself. e UK's BREXIST has long been com- ing, I would say every since the TEU when John Major was the UK's PM way back in the early 1990s but COVID19 is a real- ity we are all living now. e pandemic has shown everyone how weak the EU actually is and how it lacks real political leadership. e reason for this perhaps is that the EU as a European Eco- nomic Community made sense to all members but as political dreams of a United States of Europe started to gain traction and the more countries joined which watered down the orig- inal mission, the more likely it became for the EU project to fail ultimately. I remember François Mit- terrand talking of a Europe of 'concentric circles' circa 30+ years ago. e idea was that different European countries could assume different levels of integration and countries forming part of the inner core would be the most integrat- ed; in so doing you keep every happy. So France and Germa- ny would presumably form part of the inner core whilst the UK et al would form part of the outer most core. e idea at the time did not take- off but maybe if it had the UK would still be part of Europe albeit in the outer most circle of integration. According to a survey, com- missioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank about two years ago, the majority of Euro- peans expect the EU to end in twenty-years time and the list of countries thinking EU dis- integration is 10-20 years away includes EU heavy-weights such as France, Germany and Italy. I therefore think Brexit con- stitutes a dramatic failure for Europe but COVID poses to be the killer blow since the pandemic is getting the worse out of the Brussels bureaucrats and show casing how/why the UK was perhaps correct to see the EU project as ultimately unworkable. COVID has wrecked social, economic and political havoc and caused untold deaths but the EU might just be added to its list of victims. I hope the EU get's its act together fast and recovers from all this since otherwise we all stand to lose. COVID killed Europe

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