Europe Needs a New Marshall Plan - No Matter How Expensive

The sum of the post-war Marshall Plan will not be enough to absorb the economic shock brought by the coronavirus. The new stimulus packages will have to be multiple times the scale of the post-war assistance. European citizens cannot be satisfied with a program that restores the level of wealth from the 1950s. Besides, a new Marshall Plan would have to be larger in scope, to encompass the Eastern European countries and developing countries.

At the same time, “we not only witness the spread of the coronavirus, but also the spread of a virus of nationalism,” says Ian Lesser. The surge of nationalism has so far prevented countries from coming together to fight the pandemic and its consequences together.

If key players in the crisis, and not least the U.S. president, do to change their minds in time, if national egoism can’t be overcome, “the survival of the current democratically-elected governments, even the survival of our democratic order” is at stake.