Pandemic recovery

European governments are turning their attention to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Many EU orthodoxies are being challenged: the role of the European Central Bank, the bloc’s fiscal rules, and its principles of free movement, free trade and limited state aid. The recovery fund offers an opportunity to strengthen the EU economically and politically, but its success depends on implementation by the member-states. Meanwhile, China is eyeing the strategic advantage it can gain from the haphazard response in the West.