The scale of the response to COVID-19 highlights the degree to which radical change is possible. Germany and Europe should seize this moment to advance a more democratic, enterprising, sustainable and hopeful future.
After a somewhat slow start, Germany’s response to COVID-19 has become exemplary. Berlin has provided humanitarian aid and assistance to EU partners, set the European standard for testing, jettisoned its previously sacrosanct balanced budget (“Black Zero”) and authorised a vast stimulus package. Underpinning all this has been the well-informed, reassuring and widely praised leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Germany has proven it can react swiftly and decisively when the moment demands it. It must now demonstrate its capacity to act proactively; to steer the post-coronial future in a more progressive direction. This pandemic will be exploited politically, whether we like it or not. Berlin cannot cede this historic moment to authoritarian powers, reactionary ideas or conservative timidity. Nor can it simply return to ‘business as usual’. This would only store up trouble for the future; and besides, for many people business as usual was precisely the problem.
