The world was bracing for a new Cold War. The Great Powers Competition, they called it. Some were leery of potential economic wars or security situations in some of the earth’s hottest spots, troubled about the Mediterranean’s future, the so-called Middle East of the South China Sea.

But then a virus called COVID-19 spread and virulently wiped reality as we had known it until now.

We were hopeless, feeble and disconnected for a year and when the Russians came with a vaccine, we, in the Western world, simply said we would never put that in our body!

Brussels would guide us. German companies would save us. We did not need the Russians. For Heaven’s sake... the Russians!

Then, the void, the first wave, and the second, and the third...

Suddenly, Sputnik (what a brilliant name) became more valuable for Moscow to infiltrate Europe than the threat of force. Hungary first, and then Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and even Austria decided that enough is enough. If they could not protect their people following the EUH recommendations, they would do it some other way. So, they took a bow before Russia.

While we Europeans were fighting internally and the US was nowhere to be seen, Russia proved us wrong and gained a fantastic edge on the Great Powers Competition chessboard.

I am not even counting the dozens of Latin American and African countries that are more than willing to trade whatever is necessary for a vaccine they cannot either afford or produce.

Why can’t we acknowledge that we need all the help we can get to combat the virus, wherever it might come from?- Ramón Pedrosa-López

In the last days, we now have the hindsight to stop and reflect on how we failed so badly, so quickly. How EUH institutions neglected their tasks and how Russia and Dubai became global health leaders (I am not going to put one single positive comment about China here, after they destroyed – and we betrayed – Hong Kong).

The EUH institutions have proven their complete uselessness when dealing with a massive crisis and I am upset. How can I not be?

No one is taking any responsibility, like in the regimes we like to vilify.

The president of the European Commission should resign over the failure of the AstraZeneca negotiations. Still, the EU institutions have turned out to be so bluntly unaccountable that they have failed us, the European people.

For years, we were affected by the European decision-making process but we learnt to live with it. Some advantages we have certainly enjoyed. Schengen has the most sophisticated construct in the history of global politics. How we might be able to live without it is beyond my understanding. But others were a waste of time or simple aberrations.

During the pandemic, the system proved that it could not solve real, life-affecting situations. We were supposed to be the wealthiest economy globally, the most developed, ancient and sophisticated and we failed to protect our people.

Hundreds of people die every day while the vaccine is rolling out so slowly that it will take us a decade to protect our own.

Twelve months after the real outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus is still spreading unchallenged in Italy, Spain, Malta and France. Coordination policies seem to be nowhere.

Italy is blocking exports of the vaccine to Australia while each Spanish region has different rules and regulations to tackle the virus. Here we are, wondering how Westminster did such a phenomenal job , while we were still blindly finding a way.

I talked to a Russian friend the other day. She asked me: “Can you, please, explain why Europe has decided to destroy their own economy?” Unfortunately, I do not have an answer to that question.

Exactly one year after we had to abandon travel, come back home and lock ourselves down amid the pandemic we have seen how neither Germany nor Brussels has offered real solutions to solving this situation. The prime minister of Spain promised a steady solution to the case but none of that was to come.

COVID-19 was to change everything and it has changed everything, including security policies and foreign policy. And, in the 70 years since treaties were signalled to organise Europe’s coal and steel policy, we should have learned better.

Yes, I know my analysis is blatantly simplistic but you know what I mean when I say that, for a year, I have been waiting for a European politician to come and say: “Everybody knows that everybody dies bravely. But not every day. Not today. Today everybody lives!”

This is yet to happen. I am sadly sure that nothing is going to change soon.

However, we can start demanding answers to self-explanatory questions.

Why can’t we acknowledge at this point that we need all the help we can get to combat the virus, wherever it might come from? Why can’t we start saying that Brexit worked for Britain and that Boris Johnson was not that mistaken? Why can’t we find a new way, once and for all, before more people die and more jobs are lost?

It is brilliant to be part of the European security agreement but what COVID-19 has shown is that larger members of the Union are most willing to go their own way if it suits their country’s own interests or vision.

Is it difficult to realise that we are compromising the economic future of Europe and the health of what was presumed to be the most sophisticated society?

Like the old British campaign poster said, “Europe isn’t working’’. Maybe it isn’t such a bad idea to wonder if there is life beyond the European construct…

Ramón Pedrosa-López, president, Paloma Project.