Interview by Mohnsen Abdelmoumen, American Herald Tribune, June 9, 2020.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Can Europe survive the Covid-19 crisis?

Wolfgang Streeck: It depends on what you mean by “survive“. Complex societies don‘t “die“; something always remains—the question is: what? If you mean the European Union or the European Monetary Union, will they still exist when the virus has left? Of course. If you ask if the virus is undermining them, I think one must not forget that both EU and EMU were already undermining themselves before the pandemic; remember Brexit? Also remember the tensions between Germany and the Mediterranean countries, and between Germany in particular and the new, peripheral member states in the East. The pandemic may or may not have accelerated the decay of “Europe“ as an international organization, or institution; but apart from this and more importantly, the virus has not derailed older tendencies of development that are too deeply rooted politically and economically to be undone by a tiny virus. (…)

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