Maurizio Massari, Italy’s permanent representative to the European Union, wrote an opinion piece for Politico Europe Tuesday evening publicly shaming fellow EU states for their failure to help, and once again asking them to come together. Instead, European countries are banning the exportation of face masks and other medical equipment needed to deal with the crisis. Germany’s health minister, quoted by Politico, argued that this was necessary: “The market is such at present that masks are not going where [they’re most] urgently needed, it’s where people pay most money for them.”
This is absurd. First of all, if Germany’s government is really so worried about masks not getting where they’re needed (as opposed to covering its own backside), they can donate masks to the Italians, can’t they? This complaint about profiteering is really just cover for their own fearful selfishness. Maybe Germany is worried about becoming the next Italy, but that isn’t the excuse they’re giving. They’re hiding behind the immorality of profiteering as if that were the real motive.
And it may be perfectly understandable for Germany to want to protect its own national interest in a time of crisis, but it runs counter to the entire concept of the EU that we’ve been hearing so much about during the debate over Brexit. Member states are supposed to benefit by putting aside their own selfish needs. French President Emmanuel Macron has cayled for an even more united post-Brexit EU. What happened to that? Right now, his government is seizing control of masks throughout France. I haven’t seen anything about them ending up in Italy.
(I should also note that price signals at least discourage people and governments that don’t need masks from hoarding them. Even if third-parties buy and resell the masks at a profit, which many might criticize as immoral, at least the economic incentives direct the masks toward wherever they are most needed, where they will fetch the highest price and people are not tempted to sell them on. German and French government action against the free flow of equipment confers no such benefit, and actually works against getting masks to where they are most needed at any given time.)
As of last night, EU officials seemed only to have empty words for Italy, and the actual European governments seem even slower to provide any help. As Massari noted, the European nations’ inaction has unfortunately sent the Italians running into the arms of the same Chinese regime that caused the problem in the first place by arresting and punishing those who tried to head off the epidemic at the beginning.
Question about Brexit: Brilliant idea, or best idea ever?
