For years, fears have been mounting that a “black swan” would test the European Union’s crisis-management capabilities. With the outbreak of the Covid-19 coronavirus, those fears have come to pass – and it is not at all clear that the EU will be able to withstand it.

The Covid-19 epidemic is not just any stress test. For starters, it is likely to affect the entire world, leading to a synchronised growth slowdown or even recession. Synchronised recessions are virtually always deeper and longer-lasting than downturns affecting individual economies, and they hit open economies like the EU particularly hard.