A new normal in exceptional times? The European Parliament’s reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Although crises tend to empower executive decision-making, parliaments still play a key role in providing democratic legitimacy and long-term solutions to emergencies. The Covid-19 pandemic and its subsequent economic crisis have posed similar challenges to the EU institutions. The European Parliament has struggled to keep its visibility, especially in the aftermath of the lockdowns and the shift to virtual decision-making. Therefore, this panel investigates how the European Parliament has coped with this new context of ‘remote legislative work’ and what consequences it has had for its role as representative of EU citizens and co-decider. We focus on three key issues: economic recovery measures, gender and electoral reform in order to assess the long-term consequences that the crisis has had for the internal workings of the European Parliament and its impact on democratic representation and participation.

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