Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, provides his perspective:
Will countries like Italy and Spain now, and others in Europe now, gradually open up?
It's got to be very, very gradual. And it's going to be different in different European countries, although there's an attempt to sort of coordinate somewhat from the European Union point of view. What you've seen in Italy, to take the worst hit country, is opening up a couple of shops, some bookstores and some shops for children's clothes, in addition to pharmacies and food stores. But I think most restrictions will be fairly firmly in place in most of Europe for weeks to come.
What's the EU's reaction to the United States suspending payments to the World Health Organization?
Well, sheer disbelief at the near lunacy of cutting funding to the only international agency we have fighting the coronavirus, particularly around other countries. I mean, there will be a sort of a reckoning after this crisis, which international organizations or which governments mishandled things in the beginning. And the W.H.O. might have something to answer for then, but that's for then. To cut funding now, I mean, there is sheer disbelief in Europe. And quite a number of countries are going to step up, you know, to compensate for the funding that the US is depriving the world health body of.
