The EU and crisis: EU institutions, the Covid-19 pandemic, and beyond

Abstract

This panel examines how the European Union has responded to crisis. All the papers present original and ongoing research, approaching crisis from a variety of perspectives. Eva-Karin Gardell and Mark Rhinard link ongoing research in EU studies to four themes in the crisis management literature -- centralisation, decision making, meaning, making and learning crises – to suggest a new set of research agendas. Three of the papers address aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Hussein Kassim’s discussion of the role played by the European Commission situates its empirical investigation in debates in the EU crisis response literature that has typically highlighted the role of the European Council, and suggests a new approach that is more attentive to issue interaction and agency. Gil Jan Brandsma and Jens Blom Hansen consider the respects in which the European Commission can be considered to have emerged as a winner from the Covid crisis, while Selma Benjaballah examines how the crisis affected the operation of the EU’s legislative institutions, the extent to which they were able to conduct ‘business as usual’ and how, if at all, democratic legitimacy suffered as a result. In a fifth paper, Sandrino Smeets and Derek Beach investigate the interaction between the EU institutions in developing reforms in relation to the migration crisis. The panel brings together researchers from different subfields, utilising different methodologies. The eight authors are based in different institutions in five countries. Sara Connolly will act as chair and Eva Heidbreder will the the discussant, thereby adding a sixth nationality.

Title	Details
The EU Commission: the winner of the COVID-19 crisis?	View Paper Details
The European Commission and the Covid-19 Pandemic	View Paper Details
The interplay between the EU institutions: A comparison of the external and internal dimension of EU migration reform	View Paper Details