It’s been a long, hard winter in continental Europe, blighted by a third wave of the coronavirus and a stuttering start to vaccinations. The gloom might just be lifting.

Almost 25% of European Union citizens have now received a Covid-19 shot. Tentative steps to reopen economies from Italy to Denmark are under way.

The EU yesterday unveiled proposals to end restrictions on non-essential travel and welcome visitors who’ve been fully vaccinated, raising the prospect of a boost to hotels, restaurants and airlines.

Billions of euros in EU pandemic funds are due to flow from the summer. Europe’s Stoxx 600 Index has climbed more than 10% this year on expectations of a rapid recovery.

Just six weeks back, the outlook was dire. The EU executive in Brussels was sidelined after several nations unilaterally suspended the AstraZeneca shot over health concerns, threatening to undermine a vaccine rollout already hobbled by procurement issues. What was the point of the EU if it couldn’t protect its citizens?

Now, its bet on the BioNTech/Pfizer shot is paying off. It has exported vaccines to the world when the U.S. held back. The fact that all EU members were in the same boat is likely to have strengthened the bloc rather than weakened it.

Still, the incidence rate is still uncomfortably high in parts of Europe, and the threat of new strains ever present.

As India’s experience shows: Humility is one clear lesson of the pandemic that Europe would do well to heed. — Alan Crawford

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Global Headlines

Hardening tone | A massive investment deal reached in December between the EU and China — after seven years of wrangling — may have been the high-water mark for ties that are quickly deteriorating. And as this story explains, if the German Greens take a major role in government after September’s election, there could be a further China-skeptic chill from Europe’s biggest economy.

Long haul | The fate of U.S. President Joe Biden’s $4 trillion social spending and infrastructure plans now depends on lawmakers turning it into legislation. Passing the spending and tax increases will require compromise in the divided Congress. But with Democrats less united on the size of the packages than they were for the initial pandemic aid program, the debate could drag well into the fall or even 2022.

The U.S. economy is on a multi-speed track as minorities in some cities are left behind by the overall boom in hiring, according to a Bloomberg analysis of about a dozen metro areas.

Resisting a shutdown | Two weeks ago, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on states to only consider lockdowns “as the last option.” Now everyone from his political allies to top business leaders and Biden’s chief medical adviser see them as the only way to stem the world’s worst virus outbreak, as Upmanyu Trivedi and Michelle Fay Cortez report. Modi is so far resisting their calls.

Upbeat prediction | British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said coronavirus lockdown rules are set to be scrapped by June 21, as he makes his case to millions of voters in England, Wales and Scotland before elections on Thursday. At stake is who gets to govern London and Scotland, as well as more than 140 local English districts.

Spanish divide | Isabel Diaz Ayuso, who has become Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s most combative opponent, will seek today to cement her control of Madrid’s city government in a snap vote. Right-wing Ayuso has pushed to keep the capital’s economy open as much as possible through the pandemic, defying the consensus in the rest of Europe as well as the mounting death toll.

What to Watch

• Group of Seven foreign ministers meet from today in London where they will discuss issues including the rising clout of China and Russia’s recent tensions with Ukraine.
• The U.S. Supreme Court will consider a case today on whether to reduce sentences for potentially hundreds of people convicted of possessing small amounts of crack cocaine.
• Colombia’s Finance Minister Alberto Carrasquilla resigned yesterday after days of bloody street protests pushed the government to shelve his plan to raise taxes.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has until midnight to form a government after the latest inconclusive election, but he hasn’t yet nailed down a coalition.
• The collapse of a raised subway track in Mexico City, killing at least 20, risks a backlash for Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard, key allies of the president.

And finally ... The eruption of the La Soufrière volcano that rocked the Caribbean island of St. Vincent last month is triggering an environmental threat on the other side of the planet. Satellite data show a surge in sulfur dioxide across north India after the volcano spewed the gas — which can mix with water to form sulfuric acid and lead to acid rain — into the atmosphere. Of the 45 currently erupting volcanoes on Earth, La Soufrière is among those that worry volcanologists the most.

 

— With assistance by Ruth Pollard, and Michael Winfrey