Summer after corona: all of Europe dances on the volcano

The masks and QR codes could remain in the glove box for the entire ride. The summer of 2022 became the first in three years without corona as an obstacle. But as the pandemic faded from view in the rear-view mirror, the route to the holiday address led through one new crisis after another.

Rising energy and food prices caused shock everywhere at the pump and checkout. Staff shortages made traveling and visiting the catering industry an ordeal. The Dutch did not have to leave their country to endure extreme heat or drought. The war in Ukraine continued unabated. And while the roasted nature is already in the autumn mode, European administrators are already warning these weeks for a kind of war winter.

For example, French President Macron predicted last week – hours after his umpteenth telephony with the Kremlin – that “our people will have to show great fortitude in the coming period to face uncertainty and enmity, or the easy way out, so as to unite the price of our freedom and accept values”.

Belgian Prime Minister De Croo foresaw Monday that it “is going to be difficult for five to ten winters.” And the head of the intelligence service in the German state of Brandenburg revealed in Die Welt am Sonntag to be alert that extreme groups are “dreaming of a German fury winter.”

When returning home, the feeling arises that the carefree post-corona time is already over before it could start. While expectations were so high after the many false starts at the ‘re-opening’ after the pandemic. The Delta variant unexpectedly spoiled the summer of 2021, Omikron last Christmas. Now it really had to happen. In the US, terms like ‘revenge travel‘ and ‘vacation vengance‘ Targeted: Taking revenge on the virus with a distant, lavish vacation.

airport suffering

But first of all, that eagerness had been excluded from the aftermath of that virus. Especially in the Netherlands, the face mask has almost disappeared from the streets for months and few still get fatally ill, but the global economy continues to hang out of balance. Companies have adapted to this in fits and starts for 2.5 years.

Now that many are eager to travel and consume as before, not every sector is ready for that. It remains difficult to estimate which corona trends will last. Baking bread yourself has not turned out to be a mass need, but talking via webcams is. The labor market follows with a delay: a crèche leader who became a warehouse worker has not just been recalled.

This reassessment of the economy leads to all kinds of contradictions. There is plenty of work, but consumer confidence is plummeting. There is fear of a new recession worldwide, but energy prices remain sky-high, also because of the war in Ukraine. Those who want to spend their hoarded money despite inflation will encounter shops or restaurants that are closed due to lack of staff.

So it felt like vacationing on a volcano. We paid quite a bit more for a hotel, terrace or flight – and suppressed the fact that money is probably needed in the winter to pay the gas bill.

In few places this is more apparent than in air traffic. One in three Europeans wanted to fly again, but the manpower was lacking. At Schiphol – and many other airports worldwide – it led to cancellations and chaos that could last for months. Even the CEO of price stunter Ryanair predicted that flying at rock bottom prices is a thing of the past.

Cork-dry continent

Even those who took the car for fear of airport suffering (or flight shame) could not avoid the many crises. Although travel umbrella organization ANVR saw slightly more early bookings to cool Scandinavia this year and the staycation (holiday-in-home country) seems to be here to stay, most Dutch people still opted for a car trip to the warm south. It led to road trips through a bone-dry continent that caught fire in many places. Conveniently, the Californian lisp now shows motorists on their screens where nature is burning. But even those who slalom around fire and traffic jams could end up on highways obscured by yellow-grey blankets of smoke. And see the blackened damage from previous fires.

Less visible, but no less disturbing, was the drought. Reservoirs and rivers that are well below their usual level. Disappointing harvests. Hydroelectric and nuclear power plants that shut down due to a lack of (cooling) water. Coal-fired power stations that do not get coal due to inland shipping stranded in rivers that are too shallow. And that with energy and food prices that are already going through the roof.

All these interlocking crises underline – again – the need for the energy transition. But along the route to the south, it could be seen how it meets its limits. In the least populated areas of the Iberian Peninsula, plenty of electricity is already being generated from solar and wind energy. But in such an empty region in Northern Portugal, where the government wants to start mining lithium on a large scale, there were many walls’Não a mina‘ (No to mine) chalked. On the other side of the border, in Spain, there was gossip as to whether the many forest fires had not been lit in order to build windmills in the charred nature.

‘Abundance at an end’

On French roundabouts, the blue-yellow of the Ukrainian flag had the neon yellow of the waistcoats jaunes to replace. Years ago, the yellow vests rose up in protest against expensive petrol and diesel. Like more European leaders, President Macron seems far from reassured that solidarity with Ukraine will continue if energy prices make everyone much poorer. Basic necessities in France meanwhile have an official maximum price, and Paris subsidizes fuel considerably. But on Wednesday he gave another speech to prepare the French for a harsh winter. “We are at the end of what seemed like an era of plenty,” he warned.