The Irish Examiner View: Time for the EU to honour its core objectives

If it’s fatuous to point out that a crisis stress tests systems to destruction it may be less so to argue that concentrating on one challenge may allow another, second crisis gather momentum. It is too early to suggest, but only just, that EU solidarity, that essential glue in today’s volatile world, is being tested in a way hardly seen since WWII came to an end 75 years ago to this week.

Brexit talks continue and the indications are not reassuring. Brussels and London haggle, each following an almost irreconcilable script. A hard Brexit pre-pandemic would have had disastrous consequences for this economy, a hard Brexit post-pandemic hardly bears thinking about.