经济学人下载:总能逆风翻盘的欧盟怎么折在了疫情上?(3)

Hardly. Her team focused too much on price and too little on security of supply. They haggled pointlessly over liability should vaccines cause harm. Europe dithered in the August holidays. It was as if the Monnet-like forging of an ever-closer union was the real prize and the task of actually running vaccination a sideshow. Subsequent bickering, point-scoring and the threatened blockade of vaccine exports have done more to undermine faith in vaccination than restore the commission’s reputation. Were she still a member of a national government it is hard to see how Mrs von der Leyen could stay in her post. 

不可能。她的团队过于关注价格，而对供应安全关注太少。他们在疫苗造成伤害的责任问题上坚持毫无意义地讨价还价。欧洲在八月假期里仍犹豫不决。就好像莫内建立一个更加紧密的联盟才是真正的奖赏，而实际的疫苗接种任务只是一个小把戏。随后的争吵、相互指责以及威胁封锁疫苗出口，只会让人们对疫苗接种更加没底，完全没有恢复欧盟委员会的声誉。如果冯德莱恩夫人仍然是国家政府的成员，很难想象她能如何继续留任。

Europe has also fallen short economically. Again, it has used the pandemic to make institutional progress, by creating a meaty new instrument known as the Next Generation EU fund, or NGEU. Worth 750bn euros ($880bn), this is targeted mainly at weaker countries that need it most. More than half the money is grants not loans, lessening the effect on national debt. It is also being paid for by raising debt for which the union as a whole is jointly liable. That is welcome, because it creates a mechanism which severs the link between raising money and the creditworthiness of national governments. In future crises that could protect euro-zone countries from capital flight. 

欧洲在经济上也有所欠缺。此外，欧盟还利用疫情，创建了一个丰富的、名为“新一代欧盟基金”的新工具，并在体制上取得了进展。该基金价值7500亿欧元（合8800亿美元），主要针对最需要援助的弱国。一半以上的资金是赠款而不是贷款，这减少了对国家债务的影响。欧盟还通过增加整个联盟共同承担的债务来支付。这是值得欢迎的，因为欧盟建立了一种机制，切断了筹资与各国政府信誉之间的联系。在未来的危机中，这可能保护欧元区国家免受资金外逃的影响。

As with vaccines, however, triumph at the NGEU’s creation belies its slow execution. The first money is still months from being paid out, as member states scrap with the commission over their individual programmes. By the end of next year, only a quarter of the fund will have been disbursed. 

然而，与疫苗一样，新一代欧盟的成功掩盖了它的缓慢执行。由于成员国在各自的项目上与欧盟委员会争论不休，第一笔资金离发放还有几个月的时间。到明年年底，只有四分之一的资金将得到拨付。