Columnist Laurent Herblay predicted Frexit (France’s exit from the EU by analogy with Brexit). He wrote about this in his article for Le Figaro, Pledge Times reported.

As the journalist writes, the health crisis that arose against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic showed that industry had left Europe—there were almost no mask-making enterprises left, and up to 80 percent of the ingredients for medicines were produced outside Europe. At the same time, China, where the coronavirus came from, has only enriched it due to the explosive growth in the export of medical products, Herblay said.

The author of the article sees this as the direct responsibility of the European Union (EU), which deals with trade agreements and prevents the provision of preferences for European trade, and also recommends countries to cut medical costs and cut doctors’ salaries in order to increase competitiveness. According to the journalist, the EU could provide more substantial support to the member states. He notes that the United States has already adopted the third aid plan and the amount of allocated funds for 2020 and 2021 reaches five trillion dollars, while in Europe this amount barely reaches 300 billion euros.

At the same time, the author of the article pointed out, the UK strategy to combat the coronavirus turned out to be more successful than that of the European Union, despite the fact that many troubles were predicted for the kingdom after Brexit. “The EU is so slow and bad in its negotiations that more and more European countries are beginning to bypass and buy vaccines from Russia and China,” Herblay writes.

As he notes, Brexit showed that leaving the European Union is difficult, but possible, and even may be beneficial, in conditions when the EU did not protect France from a single crisis.