Coronavirus: European democracies facing an extraordinary health crisis
Confronted with the need to manage an unprecedented situation in peacetime, governments are enacting worrying measures.
Across Europe, which has become the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic in just a few weeks, restrictions are increasing. Ban on assembly, traffic subject to authorization, limited movement, use of drones to track offenders, collection of geolocation data, emergency laws: the state of health emergency decreed in several Member States of the European Union (EU ) is testing fundamental freedoms at the heart of European democracies.
Radical measures taken in China, such as the use of facial recognition to enforce containment, have their followers on the continent today.
Others, human rights defenders and parliamentarians, are concerned about the massive and unprecedented use of modern technology. In a column, published on March 20 in the Financial
Times, titled "The World After the Coronavirus", Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari said, "Decisions that would normally take years of procrastination are made within hours. Immature, and even dangerous, technologies are used because the risks of doing nothing are greater. "
Everything went so fast, in fact, before a macabre daily death toll took hold everywhere, forcing governments to react in catastrophe. In transparency, of course. But never, in peacetime, yesterday’s unthinkable liberticidal measures were taken on European soil with such speed. And accepted.
Confronted with the need to manage an unprecedented situation in peacetime, governments are enacting worrying measures.
Across Europe, which has become the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic in just a few weeks, restrictions are increasing. Ban on assembly, traffic subject to authorization, limited movement, use of drones to track offenders, collection of geolocation data, emergency laws: the state of health emergency decreed in several Member States of the European Union (EU ) is testing fundamental freedoms at the heart of European democracies.
Radical measures taken in China, such as the use of facial recognition to enforce containment, have their followers on the continent today.
Others, human rights defenders and parliamentarians, are concerned about the massive and unprecedented use of modern technology. In a column, published on March 20 in the Financial
Times, titled "The World After the Coronavirus", Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari said, "Decisions that would normally take years of procrastination are made within hours. Immature, and even dangerous, technologies are used because the risks of doing nothing are greater. "
Everything went so fast, in fact, before a macabre daily death toll took hold everywhere, forcing governments to react in catastrophe. In transparency, of course. But never, in peacetime, yesterday’s unthinkable liberticidal measures were taken on European soil with such speed. And accepted.
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