Analysis
Democratic Security
Union Jack and the White Eagle. Significance of the Poland-UK Defence Treaty
28 May 2026
15 April 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic is a perfect storm for strongmen to fire up anti-EU sentiments both in the East and the West. Here’s how the Hungarian and Polish governments are taking advantage of the global pandemic crisis.
The history of European integration has taught us that a crisis or simply the evocation of an emergency situation often plays into the hands of EU-critical voices. Likewise, the current fight against the coronavirus (COVID-19) provides yet another opportunity for Eurosceptics to increase their political capital through EU-bashing.
This is unlikely to fade any time soon as the pandemic poses an indirect but even more complex threat to EU integration as Europe might be facing its largest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The aftermath is likely to be a painful recession and global structural unemployment that will require community responses based on compromise and mutual trust that has been grossly eroded in the last decade.